


Until the Sun Comes Up Again

by helloearthlings



Series: endless wonder [2]
Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Divergent Timelines, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-08-20 02:44:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20220502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloearthlings/pseuds/helloearthlings
Summary: After the car crash is who Jack is now. It started with throwing out all of his liquor, moving in with his sister, joining the CIA and doing something that mattered for a change. Making amends, constant amends, mostly to himself. Struggling every day not to be that person ever again, the guy who almost wrapped his car around a tree.And then the Warehouse. Every day with Lily. Emily, who relies on him. Ben, who looks up to him and wants to be just like him.  Sammy – Sammy Stevens. God, Jack would do anything to make Sammy smile at him.[A malfunctioning artifact sends Jack into a timeline where his gravest mistake had even more dire consequences.]





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is actually the most niche fic I could possibly write.
> 
> Thinking about W13 again made me remember just how fucking good the show was at its characterization of Pete as a recovering alcoholic. It's rarely the focus of an episode, but it's present in his characterization every single moment and affects him all the time. And I'd already slotted Jack into Pete's role in the show with the vibes, and I thought....well, I love to write non-idealized Jack who's a full person making a lot of mistakes. And there's also an episode in which everyone forgets Pete was ever born, which has some great heart and team moments. So......we have this fic. 
> 
> Set about a year after the end of the last one, and all character death is temporary! I hope the three people who read this have fun lol.

Jack had spent the week in Nebraska, as you do, tracking down Robert Frost’s journal.

_The Road Not Taken, _or as Sammy called it in their briefing, _The Worst Mistake You Never Made. _The artifact has the power to change the universe, go back in time to fix something in your past – or go back and make your worst mistake have even graver consequences when it wasn’t used correctly.

The man in Nebraska had used it to go back in time to marry his childhood sweetheart instead of cheating on her – it had been sort of depressing, reversing that, but the rules of the universe call for such things.

The problem is that now that Jack and Lily had managed to get the journal back to the Warehouse, it’s on the fritz, and does not want to be relegated to a shelving unit for all time.

“Someone,” Lily pants as the book zips out of her hands and flies across the biography shelves, “Someone, catch that thing!”

“Why’s it doing this?” Jack asks, a little bewildered, but all Sammy does is shake his head and grab at the journal with his purple nylon gloves. He misses, and it zips through another shelf, pages rustling in the breeze it’s creating.

“It doesn’t want to be neutralized, it’s fighting back,” Sammy curses as he grasps it with his fingertips. It flies away again, and whirs past Ben’s head on the opposite side of the aisle.

“Jack,” Ben bats it away from his head and toward Jack, “Catch it!”

“With gloves!” Lily says sharply, lunging across the three feet of space between them to grab one of Jack’s hands. “This won’t be a joyride if you touch that thing!”

“Don’t you have to actually read it for it to work?” Ben asks as Sammy snaps on of the gloves onto Jack’s hand, fast and efficient but with his usual level of care. Sammy’s fingers twist around Jack’s for half a second, through both of their gloves, and Jack takes an extra moment to smile at him in thanks for the gesture.

“That’s the right way to do it, but there are a lot of wrong ways with worse results –”

The book flies at an unprecedented speed between Ben and Lily, directly at the back of Sammy’s head. Jack pushes him aside as quick and gentle as possible, and lunges with an arm outstretched in hopes of catching the goddamn thing.

Unfortunately, it whirs right past his gloved hand –

“Jack, watch out!”

Jack’s not sure who yelled – it might’ve been all three of them, the volume had been so intense – but the next thing he knows, the journal’s turned, and hit the back of his neck hard enough to knock him to the ground.

Everything goes sideways, and grey.

Jack tries to call out, but his throat isn’t working. There’s an awful buzzing sound in his ears, along with what sounds like a car siren. His vision goes entirely black, and he thinks he hears someone begin to shout his name, but they’re cut off –

Cut off by a sickening crunch in Jack’s chest, and the nothing.

* * *

There’s a divide in life for Warehouse Agents: who you were before you became to the Warehouse, and who you are after. The Regents mention it during their psych evals every year, and though Jack’s certain that it holds true for most agents, it’s never been quite that way for him.

Coming to the Warehouse changed his life, absolutely – but there’s already a divide in Jack’s life. Already a before and after.

Before the car crash, and after. After he sobered up – and before.

Jack’s life is split in two. The crash is the only thing separating him from the person he’d been the first twenty-six years of his life. Tangible, heavy, concrete – but singular.

Jack the drunk, Jack the loser, repressed and wild all at once, drinking in order to feel something, anything at all –

And then he all he could feel was a broken arm and a nasty cut on his forehead, and the unbearable guilt of the past eight years that he spent doing absolutely nothing with his life than making himself and everyone around him miserable.

After the car crash is who Jack is now. It started with throwing out all of his liquor, moving in with his sister, joining the CIA and doing something that mattered for a change.

Making amends, constant amends, mostly to himself. Struggling every day not to be that person ever again, the guy who almost wrapped his car around a tree.

And then the Warehouse. Every day with Lily. Emily, who relies on him. Ben, who looks up to him and wants to be just like him. Sammy – Sammy Stevens. God, Jack would do anything to make Sammy smile at him.

Before and after.

Jack is so, so glad that his friends are all a part of the _after_.

* * *

Jack wakes up to someone hitting his face, and none too gently.

“Lily?” Jack croaks out, groggy. She’s the only one who wouldn’t be careful with him, but even she wouldn’t hit this hard unless she was pissed. She might be. What did Jack – oh, right, the artifact flying through the air –

_Shards of glass in his stomach, blood getting on the upholstery- _

“He’s awake,” a sharp, feminine voice that Jack doesn’t recognize says, and he forces his eyes open.

The room comes into focus, but it’s not a room Jack recognizes – or at least, not one that looks correct.

He’s in Sammy’s office – the layout is the same, the shag carpeting, two desks on opposite sides of the room, a small door leading into what used to be Sammy’s bedroom.

It’s not the same, though.

Gone are Ben’s videogame set-up, Lucille Ball’s various toys and dishes, Sammy’s books. The two desks are neat and pristine, unlike Sammy and Ben’s, with papers stacked precisely in various piles on each of them. Instead of a soft golden hue, the room is cast in dark grey and black.

And the two people standing over him aren’t anyone he recognizes. There’s a pretty woman with curly blonde hair, in her early thirties at most, and a wiry man in his late twenties with short-cropped brown hair and yellow teeth.

And sitting in Sammy’s desk isn’t Sammy, but the slimy, well-groomed Steven Grisham. He’s leaning back in Sammy’s desk chair, frowning severely in Jack’s direction.

Jack realizes that he’s handcuffed.

That’s fun.

“Grisham?” Jack says blankly, and the two other people in the office give each other confused looks. “What the hell are you doing here? Where’s everybody else? And who are these guys?”

“I think we’re doing the talking here,” the woman says, a little too pleased with the line. “What were _you _doing in our aisles? How did you even get in this building? You _don’t _have clearance.”

“I’m –” Jack blinks up at her, bewildered. “I’m Jack Wright? I’ve worked here for almost four years. Grisham knows me, we’ve met.”

Jack’s heart pounds in his chest –there’s no love lost between Grisham and any of the agents, but certainly he’ll tell them who Jack is, even if it’s reluctantly.

Grisham only raises an eyebrow, though. “I’ve never seen you in my life. How the hell did you get in this place?”

“I’ve always been here.” Now Jack’s annoyed. “You were one of the people who recruited me! Four years ago? You and Mary Jensen appeared in my apartment in the middle of the night and offered me –”

“Mary Jensen?” The woman cuts him off, shock and suspicion mingling in her voice. “How do you know that name?”

“Because I work here!” Jack isn’t panicking yet, but it’s a close thing. His head aches with the effort to try to reconcile what had happened –

_Blood running down his face, falling into the crevices of his hand. He watches, horrified, sirens too far away – _

“I’ve been here for four years, I think I’d remember you,” the man tells Jack, and prods him in the cheek obnoxiously with his pointer finger. Jack leans away, glaring at him.

“He’s obviously under the effect of something,” Grisham interrupts, eying Jack with curiosity, but definitely not the innocent kind. “Have you come into contact –”

“With an artifact?” Jack interrupts impatiently, and then realizes.

The journal hit him, hit his bare skin. It needs to be read in order to work correctly, but there are a million different ways that the artifact could go wrong. Instead of fixing a mistake, it could create a mistake.

_He can’t move his arm. Can’t move his legs. Can’t move at all._

“Sammy,” Jack says, and they all practically jump when he says the name. Do they recognize it? God, Jack hopes so. “Sammy Stevens. He’s here, he has to be, call him right now.”

“You can’t just –” the woman glares before regaining her composure with a deep breath, “you can’t just _call _the Caretaker.”

Oh, _fuck. _

Any hope that Jack has left drains out of his system, and he suddenly can’t get his mouth to form words.

This is a different world. Reality has realigned. Sammy’s the Caretaker. What mistake did Jack make –

_Crunch. _

“Look up my name,” Jack turns to Grisham, struggling to get a decent breath in. “Take my fingerprints, run me through your database, and _tell me what happened to me.”_

Jack already knows, of course he does. The man in Nebraska, he’d had dual memories in his head – the version of his life without the artifact, and the version with.

Jack doesn’t have a second version.

“Only because I was already planning on it,” Grisham turns to his computer. “Maggie, Pete, get a fingerprint.”

The woman – Maggie – grabs his right hand with too much fervor, but if it’ll get Jack answers…

“Jack Wright,” Grisham reads off of his screen that Jack can’t see. He feels as if he’s going to throw up already. “Of San Jose, California. Died in a drunk driving accident in 2009. Survived by his parents, his sister, yadda yadda, so on and so forth. The picture looks like you. Younger, but you. So – how about you explain to me why a dead man is sitting in my office?”

Jack’s mind reels. His biggest mistake. The car crash. He died in the car crash, and yet he’s also still here. That means he has a chance to fix the mistake again, reverse the damage. If he gets a hold of the artifact, will the universe just realign? Would he have to use it again to fix the mistake, go back in time?

_“Orpheus’s Lyre.”_

Jack knows that voice.

That voice shouldn’t be so low and monotone. It should be bright, and cheerful, maybe a little tight and annoyed but never deadened and dark. Still, none of that matters in the end, because it’s still so recognizable – especially to Jack.

As if from nowhere, Sammy Stevens steps out from the shadows of the doorframe. Jack would know his face at the end of the world, but that doesn’t mean that the face in front of him isn’t painful to look at.

Sammy’s –

He’s _gaunt. _He’s always been pale, but he resembles more of a vampire than a person, spindly and too thin. His jacket practically hangs off of him, skin and bones. His hair isn’t curling around his shoulders, or pulled back on top of his head like usual. It’s cropped-short, and looks more dishwater than brown. Dark circles have formed around his eyes, and he barely blinks at he stares at Jack.

Without recognition. Of course, without recognition, because if Jack died when he was twenty-six, he never met Sammy.

And Sammy became the Caretaker.

_Shitfuckgoddamn – _

“Sir,” Maggie says, casting a look between Jack and Sammy, “What do you mean?”

“That’s the only artifact I know of that can bring back the dead from that long ago,” Sammy’s voice remains gravelly. Is that just how it sounds now? Jack can’t tear his eyes away from Sammy. Just this morning, Sammy had made everyone French toast for breakfast and shoved some in Jack’s mouth with a laugh.

Jack had fixed his glasses.

This Sammy doesn’t wear glasses.

“It’s not that, it’s Robert Frost’s journal,” Jack tries to explain, but Sammy’s expression doesn’t change. “Road Not Taken. The universe readjusted itself – this isn’t reality. My reality, at least. I didn’t die in that car crash. I became a Warehouse agent. Please, you have to believe me.”

“The Warehouse doesn’t recruit alcoholics,” Grisham interrupts with a roll of his eyes.

“Please believe me, Sammy – Sammy, please,” Jack doesn’t care that he’s begging. Maybe that will make Sammy’s eyes look less deadened. “Just let me go back down and find the journal, and I can fix this, and everything will be okay again.”

“So in your version of events, you’re….a field agent here,” Sammy says slowly, and Jack nods, recognizing Sammy’s pragmatism but not the cold way in which he speaks. “You have to understand, that’s very difficult to believe. Only the top candidates in their fields are ever considered for Warehouse positions, and there is no application. You’re only chosen. And I can’t imagine why I would choose you.”

_So you weren’t born perfect, _Sammy kissed him in a dark parking lot lit up by one street lamp, leaning into his side. So warm. _That’s alright. Gives you character. _

“You did,” Jack says, and his voice comes out strangled. “I don’t – I can’t tell you why. But you did.”

Jack thinks of all the things no one knows about Sammy but him – but in this universe, where Sammy took the position of Caretaker, where Grisham’s sitting in this desk instead Ben, how much weight would that really hold?

Besides, Jack doesn’t want to shout from the rooftops that Sammy’s parents kicked him out at sixteen because he was gay. No version of Sammy deserves that, especially if –

If this world is permanent.

“I find it much more likely that you have a co-conspirator that helped bring you back to life, and had to learn a lot about the Warehouse in the process,” Sammy continues, too expressionless. Sammy’s never expressionless, not like this. His repression stops him from smiling all the time, but he’s always making a face of some sort. He’s got the cutest frown. “The laws of life and death are horrible – but they have to be obeyed.”

“Sammy,” Jack pleads, searching for anything he can say to make Sammy at least hear him out. “C’mon, I know you. I know you so well. And this – this _isn’t_ you. Please, please just untie me. Let me talk to you alone and explain – we can go to Emily’s, maybe she –”

The expressionless blank slate of Sammy’s face suddenly spasms, turning from nothing into a thunderous anger that Jack has never once seen from Sammy in his entire life.

“Maggie, get Orpheus’s Lyre immediately,” Sammy’s voice is tight and horrific. “Use it, and he should disappear.”

And then Sammy disappears, without a noise to even indicate that he’s gone to wherever the Caretaker goes. Jack hadn’t even blinked, and he’s out of sight.

Herschel mostly uses his power to sneak up on people and make them jump out of their skin. People, mostly meaning Ben. He cackles in delight every time Ben shudders and runs to Sammy to tell him to _stop Herschel doing that!_

“Secure his bonds,” Maggie says, and strides out of the room.

The man, Pete, moves to Jack’s side, presumably to follow her order. Jack’s all too aware of Grisham’s eyes on him.

Jack’s not sure how Orpheus’s Lyre will affect him. He’s not dead, not really, but he’s also _meant_ to be dead in this universe. He can’t take the chance that it’ll make him go away. No one else knows he’s alive, no one else can fix this and realign the universes if Jack’s gone.

He waits until Pete is inches away, and then slides his chair forward just enough to give him the leverage he needs to head-butt him.

Pete yowls, and Jack manages to knee him when he leans forward. He falls to the ground, and Jack steps on his stomach, which he thinks knocks the guy out. Grisham springs to his feet, but Jack had already noticed that no one had any weapons on them when he’d been brought in. They hadn’t considered him that much of a threat.

That’s always a mistake, and Jack takes a savage sort of pleasure in standing up, and though he’s not connected to the chair, he maneuvers it with him to pin Grisham to his desk with.

“Key,” Jack pants, and Grisham gasps out in pain. “Now, please.”

“Maggie will be back any minute –”

“_Key, _you sanctimonious bastard_._”

Grisham, with some effort, opens the first desk drawer. Jack applies pressure even harder, and he can feel when Grisham passes out from the lack of oxygen.

“Sorry,” Jack tells the unconscious form as he leans backwards against the desk to grab the handcuff key, and maneuvers his fingers as quickly as they’ll go to try and unlock the cuffs. “But I just want you to know that if I accidentally killed you, my going back to reality _is _going to reverse it. So really, this is a favor for you.”

Jack unlocks the cuffs, and tosses them to the ground after a quick glance down at the aisles to see if Maggie heard anything. She’s not in sight, so Jack fishes around in Grisham’s pockets until he finds a set of car keys.

Jack pauses one last time on his way out – if Sammy’s the Caretaker, can he tell what happened inside the building just now?

“I’ll be back soon,” Jack whispers, just in case his not-boyfriend is listening, and then doesn’t look back again.

* * *

Jack thinks he drank a relatively normal amount as a teenager.

Of course it was still too much, but too much at fifteen is different than too much at twenty-five. It’s normal to drink when you’re a kid – you’re allowed to fuck up then. Jack didn’t get blackout drunk every night or anything, but he partied on the weekends. Everyone did. It was that kind of town.

It would’ve been fine if Jack had stopped there, but he hadn’t.

The drinking got unhealthy around the time Jack got engaged.

It made complete sense looking back. Jack had been nineteen years old, so closeted that he hadn’t consciously realized he had no interest in girls, and a blonde, bubbly fiancée who hadn’t noticed either. Jack was always good at pretending, especially with her.

She’d wanted to get married, so Jack had asked her. Of course that would make him miserable, with the knowledge he had of himself now. He’d been feeling pressured, and repressed, and utterly alone in the world. His parents egged him on, but Lily had stopped speaking to him, saying he’d be wasting his life with her.

She’d known. Lily had always known.

Jack hadn’t known anything. He just knew he was supposed to be happy and he wasn’t, and thought that was how the world worked. And so he drank. Alone and often.

By the time he broke things off with the girl, moved out of his hometown and into a big city, it was too late. Alcohol was his crutch – and now it was his crutch for meeting guys.

Jack would have to get hammered to even get a few words out around a guy he found attractive, let alone do anything with him. The gay scene of the early 2000s had been all about hooking up, a new freedom from the culture of fear surrounding the last couple of decades of the twentieth century.

And so that’s what Jack did, for five years. Drink and hook up and drink some more, because if he stopped drinking he’d have to start thinking about how much he hated himself.

No one ever brings up those years, nowadays. Not even Lily. Jack had told Sammy about his engagement, late at night in an ashamed whisper, and Sammy had curled around him and told him _I’m really not jealous of a girl you knew fifteen years ago. Never introduce me, though. _

Sammy always took everything he learned about Jack in his stride, no matter how messy. Sammy would barely flinch, always smile, and say _Jack, I only care about who you are now. _

Jack’s never felt like he deserved that.

* * *

Jack goes at least twenty miles over the speed limit, so it takes him less than ten minutes to get to the B&B. It’s easy to speed in the Badlands – rare is the sheriff’s car, and they’re really only watching the interstate anyway.

There’s a vehicle he doesn’t recognize in the driveway of his home– not Emily’s, but it very well could be in this universe. Jack doesn’t know how much he credence he puts in the Butterfly Effect, but he knows that if he’s dead and no one here has ever met him, there are going to be changes both major and tiny.

Sammy’s the Caretaker. _Fuck, _of course Sammy’s the Caretaker.

Lily isn’t here because she wasn’t recruited without Jack. They were a team, a matching set, and Jack was the one with paranormal vibes that got the Warehouse’s attention.

Vibes that aren’t helping him right now. God, he hopes they’re still intact in this world.

(The alcohol had turned them off, made them easier to ignore. He knew before he was going to get in the car that night that something horrible was going to happen, but that it was something that _needed _to happen –)

Ben must not have hacked into the Warehouse, or if he did, was dealt with in some other way. Jack’s sick at the thought, but he can look Ben up later. He has to see what Emily knows, because Emily predates Jack’s arrival to the Warehouse. She’s the Keeper, she has to be here, she’s attached.

Jack skids into the parking lot, and jumps out of the car. He knows he doesn’t have much time, and that once Maggie makes sure the others are okay, she’ll be after him. He needs to be out of here quick, if only he can convince Emily to follow him.

But the woman who stops him in his tracks in the doorway isn’t Emily.

“Who are you?”

The woman is maybe thirty, with long red hair tied back in a tight braid. She’s about half a foot shorter than Jack, which means she’s pretty tall for a woman. Emily is too, but this woman has square shoulders, visible biceps, and is dressed in utilitarian green combat gear instead of Emily’s usual sundress-filled wardrobe.

“My name’s Jack,” Jack tells her, figuring he might as well be honest if he’s going to get any answers. It doesn’t seem like she’s been altered to a possible intruder. Her eyes are suspicious, but she’s not holding herself as if she’s ready for a fight to begin. “Who are you? And what are you doing here?”

“My name’s Katie,” the woman says. She has a lightly southern lilt to her voice. “Katie Lynch. I’m the proprietor of this bed and breakfast. Now what are _you _doing here?”

Jack stares, and then glances back out at the sign on the road. He hadn’t noticed anything about it – but then again, it still says _Emily’s, _in peeling, faded letters.

“Emily Potter,” Jack turns back to her, something painful growing in his throat. “Emily Potter, she used to live here, her name’s on the sign – where is she?”

“Sir,” Katie’s eyes widen, and Jack’s heart stutters. “Emily Potter died two years ago.”

“I – I – _what_?”

Jack can’t breathe. The suspicion in the woman’s face melts slightly, and she reaches forward to grasp his shoulder with surprising strength.

“There was a shooting here,” Katie says quietly. “A stray bullet. We had a memorial service out back, the place is still named in her honor –”

A shooting. Two years ago.

The B&B had been under attack. His name was Beauregard, he had plenty of lackeys to do his bidding, and he was furious with them all for taking his artifact from him. He’d tracked them down. It had only lasted a day, but it was a day Jack and Emily spent locked in the kitchen, hiding in the space between the fridge and the freezer, waiting for the Regents to arrive.

Emily hadn’t been shot – but it had been close. And Jack had been with her the whole time.

Jack doesn’t realize he’s crying until a tear falls from his cheek.

“Katie,” Jack says, his voice strangled because he can’t even fucking think right now, “I – I need your help. I need to get out of here, and if I can, I can – save Emily, please, I can go back and –”

Katie takes a step backward, and removes her hand from Jack’s shoulder.

“You’re the dead man,” she says, matter-of-factly, not scared. She’s not immediately moving to incapacitate him, so that’s a good sign. “Look, I’m sorry for what’s happened to you. But you can’t bring people back to life. You can’t disrupt the balance of the world like that.”

“The world’s already out of balance, I’m trying to fix it,” Jack tells her, and he tries to sound intense and meanginful, but he knows it mainly seems like he’s about to sob. “Okay. Okay, Emily’s not here. What about Herschel? If Sammy’s the Caretaker –”

“Herschel Baumgardner?” Katie blinks at him, and oh, _fuck, _that soft expression is bad news for Jack. “He died six months ago. He’d been in a nursing home. You can’t bring him back either – he lived a good, long life. Just because he had regrets in the end –”

“Regrets?” Jack latches onto the word, and Katie shifts uncomfortably, biting her lip.

“The…the Caretaker,” Katie says, and Jack notices that she doesn’t say his name. “Look, we can’t be talking about this. You don’t have the clearance – and you’re _dead. _Look, I feel for you, but I need to take you back to the Warehouse –”

“Katie, I don’t wanna hurt you,” Jack says, taking a step backward. She raises an eyebrow. _I’d like to see you try. _Which is fair enough, she looks certifiably badass. “And I really don’t want you to hurt me. But I need to leave. _Now_. I promise that I’ll be back.”

Katie cocks her head at him, regarding him curiously. “I don’t know why you think I should believe you.”

“Because I know who Emily and Herschel are,” Jack says, desperately hoping for her to somehow see, for her to be attuned the way Emily is – was – no, _is. _“And I’m not a dead man. I’m alive, I’m just in the wrong timeline, a timeline that never was. Katie, I’m begging you. Let me go. Maggie and Grisham and the other guy – they might catch me either way. But at least give me a chance.”

Katie regards him for a moment, a neutral expression – and then she digs into the pocket of her jeans and tosses him a ring of keys.

Jack catches it, unsure of what it’s for.

“My car,” Katie explains, gesturing toward the parking lot where the unfamiliar car is parked. A small blue Mazda. “I’ll tell them you left on foot. You won’t make it far with Grisham’s.”

“Thank you,” Jack gapes. “I – I – why would you…”

“Because I can tell when someone is lying,” Katie tells him, eyes intent, “and you’re not. Get out of here. I know you’ll be back.”

“I can’t ever repay you for this,” Jack says, scrambling to get back toward the parking lot, but waving at Katie all the same. “Thank you so much.”

Katie just nods, tight-lipped. “Hurry. Just because I can tell when people are lying doesn’t mean I can get away with lying to Grisham’s face myself. Get out of here fast.”

Jack sprints to Katie’s car. The only way he’s going to get out of here in one piece without being tailed is if Grisham and Maggie don’t see the vehicle, if Katie can make up a lie about where her car is.

Jack starts driving, not sure where he’s heading until he hits the highway.

He has two choices, two members of his family who might hear him out.

Ben, who won’t recognize him. Lily, who’s living in a world where Jack is dead.

Jack drives to Rapid City, and heads to the nearest café with free Internet. He doesn’t know where either of them are in this universe, other than that they’re not here.

“Hello?” Betty Arnold picks up when Jack rings on the phone he borrowed from the barista. Hearing her voice makes Jack’s shoulders sag in relief, even if this Betty has never spent a Thanksgiving with him before.

“Betty? Um, hi, this is Jack, I’m a friend of Ben’s,” Jack starts, hoping he doesn’t sound too unbearably awkward. “From, uh, college. We sort of fell out of touch, and I can’t find him on Facebook, but I really wanted to catch up with him –”

Jesus, does he ever sound like Ben’s long lost lover. Then again, Betty’s an open-minded romantic, maybe she won’t mind.

“Oh,” Betty says, obviously a little surprised. “Benny hasn’t lived at home since he graduated. Got swooped up by a tech company in New York. I can give you his phone number – you said you knew him at Mines?”

Jack makes up a few details about classes he and Ben shared, and also makes up his own tech business that he wants to get Ben involved with so it doesn’t sound like he’s dramatically pining for him. He’s pretty sure Betty still thinks he is, though.

Jack doesn’t need to make a phone call for Lily. She’s on the state department website.

Lily’s in DC, and Ben’s in New York. Jack’s going east.


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't gonna post until I finished the fic...but then I finished the fic? It's my usual 'I planned on this being 10k and the finished product is 25k', as always. I hope everyone enjoys!

Lily had come to see Jack in the hospital, after.

“I fucking hate you,” she told him. Jack’s arm is in a cast, and he has a bandage covering half his face that will result in a huge scar that will get smaller as the years go on. Sammy sometimes touches it when they lay facing each other in bed, and he’ll lean up to kiss the scar tissue. _A part of me is glad I’m not the only one with baggage._

“I’m sorry,” Jack told her, miserable. She sat in the chair at his side for the full week he spent under a doctor’s supervision. “I – I won’t. Ever again.”

“Won’t what?”

“You know.”

Lily stared, hawk-eyed, furious. She’d been furious with him for years now. They’d lived on opposite coasts, spoken mainly through strained phone calls and painful holiday dinners. First it had been because of Jack’s engagement. Then, the drinking.

Now she was here, not at her fancy journalism job. But here with Jack, in his hospital room.

“I don’t believe you,” Lily told him point-blank. Jack nodded, because he didn’t blame her.

“What can I do, then? To get you to believe me?”

Lily didn’t even hesitate. “You can move in with me, in DC. You can let me help you get a job that has frequent drug tests where you’ll get fired if you show up hungover. You can let me micromanage the hell out of you for the rest of your life.”

Lily was as surprised as Jack when he told her yes.

Jack followed her home, and even though Lily was the opposite of a caretaking personality, she tended to Jack’s broken arm, his cut-up forehead, and his various bad habits.

She threw out every drop of alcohol in her apartment, and as far as Jack knows, she stayed just as sober as he did.

Lily’s methods leave a lot to be desired – but she’s Jack’s big sister, and she takes that fucking seriously.

* * *

Lily’s sitting with her back to Jack, stirring a rum and coke with one hand and writing meticulous longhand notes in a booklet with another. The bar isn’t crowded – it’s just after six o’clock, and it’s clearly not a party atmosphere. This is a place for day-drinkers to drink into the night.

Jack had arrived in DC an hour previously, and found Lily’s office building without much trouble. He knew he’d never get inside, and so he waited. Lily had emerged ten minutes ago, and walked the three blocks to the bar. 

Jack braces himself as he reaches out to tap her shoulder because she’s going to recognize him. He won’t be a stranger to her. That’s a double-edged sword.

Because Jack’s dead. Jack’s dead and he left his sister behind.

Jack thought during his whole drive here, which hadn’t been short, about what to say to Lily to make her trust that it was really him. Lily’s not a Warehouse agent in this world. She’s a cynical skeptic who’s not going to believe a word he says.

But Lily will recognize him. Jack won’t be a stranger to her like he is to Sammy. That makes this easier, but also even more painful.

Jack died and left his sister behind.

“You’re the only person I’d ever follow into a bar,” Jack doesn’t realize he’s talking out loud until the words slip out.

Lily turns, nearly slow-motion. Jack’s heart is in his throat.

Lily looks nearly the same. Her hair is slightly shorter, straightened meticulously instead of messy. A pencil skirt instead of dark jeans. Lipstick and eyeliner, which Lily never wears at the Warehouse.

Dark, tired eyes that suddenly alight with fire.

Lily has Jack pinned down to the bar table before he even realizes what’s happening.

“_What the fuck_?” He hears Lily’s voice hiss in his ear as he struggles, and her fingernails dig into his wrist with ugly precision.

“Ma’am!” Jack hears the bartender jolt and he smashes a glass in surprise. “What’s going on? Is he – is this gentleman bothering you, should I –”

“Lily,” Jack says weakly, plans out the window. He’s much taller and stronger than Lily, but she has combat training and got the jump on him. Besides, Jack doesn’t want to do anything that will hurt her. “I can explain.”

“What the fuck can you fucking explain_?_” Lily’s voice is tight and measured, but Jack knows the panic underneath it, the desperation. God. What’s Jack supposed to say? “Who are you? Why do you – why –”

“Lily, it’s me, I swear,” Jack wishes he could see Lily’s face, but she’s currently shoving his head against the bar table so hard he can’t see much of anything. “It’s Jack, please let me up so I can explain –”

“Why the fuck would I do that? You – you’re not Jack. You _cannot _be Jack. You’re a cousin with a similar face, or you’re a sick fuck playing an awful joke,” Lily says. “My brother died ten years ago, and I saw his body. It was _not_ pretty. So how about you tell me what the _fuck _is happening?”

Surprisingly, she releases him. Jack gasps for a full breath, and turns up to see Lily’s pointing her gun at him with hardened eyes. Her face twitches like she’s itching to pull the trigger.

“Ma’am, should I call –”

“Not yet,” Lily tells the bartender, voice nearly shaking. “I want to hear what this asshole has to say. Not that matters, because if he really is my brother, I’ll probably want to kill him even more.”

“I didn’t fake my death, if that’s what you’re implying,” Jack says, because that’s what he feared Lily would think. Lily laughs harshly in response.

“What, so – you miraculously came back to life? Jesus reborn? Or are you a total sicko creep who wants to fuck me and realized he looked like my dead brother? I’ve dealt with guys like you before, and they’re all in fucking prison, so –”

“Jesus, Lily,” Jack forgets everything but the quiver in Lily’s lip. “What guys?”

“Faking concern. What a great move,” Lily tightens her grip on the firearm. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack sees a couple of old men in the corner of the room inching toward the door. “Tell me what’s going on. This is the last time I’m asking before I let Ray call the fucking police.”

Jack swallows, throat dry. God, he hopes Lily listens to him. He’d thought the whole way here about what story he could tell, what connection they’d had, something he could never learn from Facebook info or Lily’s friends or even their parents.

“Your first crush was Elissa Harris, in the seventh grade,” Jack says softly, and Lily flinches. “You gave her a Valentine and all she did was laugh. She and her friends put it up on your locker and wrote _dyke _on it in Sharpie. You cried for hours in my room, and begged me not to tell Mom and Dad. You transferred schools because of that, and I told you I was lonely without you in the classroom down the hall.”

Lily’s expression doesn’t change, but she lowers her weapon just the tiniest bit. “Okay. So you know something that only Jack would know, that I can’t imagine him telling anyone else. That doesn’t mean I believe you’re my brother, but if you are – you’d better fucking explain how you’re here. Because we couldn’t have an open casket funeral, your body was so fucked up.”

“You aren’t going to believe this,” Jack’s eyes shift over to the bartender, Ray, who’s gaping at them like he’s never seen anything this strange in his life. He wonders exactly who Ray is going to call after this, and if the Warehouse could intercept a message like that.

“Fucking try me.”

“I’m alive, just….not in this universe. I fucked up, and touched something I shouldn’t have, and I think created this whole world,” Jack says carefully. Lily’s eyebrows go up, and so does her gun. Great. Perfect. “Look, this is gonna be hard to explain, and some dangerous people might be following me. But I really, _really _need your help if I’m going to fix this.”

Lily hesitates for a moment, perfectly still, before she lowers her gun to her side. She doesn’t put it back in her holster, only stares Jack down like he’s a particularly irritating insect.

“Maybe we could discuss this privately,” Jack eyes Ray, who’s still holding a phone in one of his lax hands.

Lily hold an arm out, and for a second, Jack thinks she’s going to hug him.

But she takes a step past him to the bar, grabs her rum and coke, and downs it.

“Well, c’mon,” Lily says, and stalks out of the bar without looking back.

* * *

Jack’s always believed that the Warehouse can sense who needs it most, and that’s how it chooses its agents.

The month leading up to the Regents appearing unannounced in his and Lily’s apartment to tell them they had a new job had been one of the worst of Jack’s life _after_.

The guy he’d dated for more than a year broke up with him because _Jack, you never have any fun. _According to him, Jack took things too seriously, had too many other interests that were too quirky and weird, too busy with work, too close to his sister, didn’t want to go to a club, avoided alcohol at all costs.

Lily had been watching him like a hawk, and giving him three lectures a day about backslides and the importance of sobriety in Jack’s career path. He wasn’t just a fucking sports reporter anymore, he was governmental employee, and being sober was instrumental.

Jack had been grumpy and irritable because of her constant paranoia, and sliding into a deeper depression because of his break-up. Backsliding, unfortunately, looked more appealing by the day.

But then the Regents. Then the Warehouse.

Then he and Lily are bickering in the car on the way to South Dakota, slapping each other’s hands away from the radio dials and discussing how the hell their apartment had been broken into and what this job even was.

_A world of endless wonder _is what had been promised.

Even Lily, despite her skepticism, could see the wonder when she gazed down at the sprawling Warehouse aisles the first time, gasping with delight even as she demanded a scientific explanation when there was none.

Jack’s always believed in that sort of thing. He didn’t need to see the Warehouse. He didn’t need to know what artifacts the world held, the paranormal that the Warehouse swum in.

Jack saw Sammy Stevens slouching in the doorway of his office and muttering something about needing some extra hands around here, and knew right away that Sammy was all the wonder Jack would ever need.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice,” Lily told him two weeks later at the B&B, after Emily made them pasta salad for dinner with a sparkle in her eye.

“Notice what, you hitting on our very nice hostess?” Jack had joked, mainly because Lily had simpered around Emily that first year. She’s still in lust, but she’s ceded simpering duties to Ben in the three years since.

“You and Sammy,” Lily said, rolling her eyes. Jack had blushed involuntarily. “What is it about him? You’re just always trying to make him laugh, and when he does – God, you’re pleased. You only get like this around guys you like.”

“He’s just…” Jack waved a hand, turning red. “I don’t know, charming. I want to know more about him. Why he’s here, what brought him here. Where he’s from, what his interests are. What he likes to do when he’s not researching artifacts.”

“I think that’s _all _he does,” Lily laughed. “What happened to you being all cut up about Skylar?”

Jack shrugged, a little uncomfortable, didn’t want to think about that anymore. “This is a new life. A new start. And I think Sammy’s really sweet. Awkward, but sweet.”

“When he’s not hiding from us,” Lily filled in, but Jack shook his head.

“Especially then.”

“_Jesus. _You’re far gone already.”

Jack couldn’t argue. From the start, he’d been taken in by Sammy. It felt like maybe Sammy’s weird quirks might fit with Jack’s. Like he could be happy here, that maybe Sammy could be happy with him, too.

It wasn’t that Jack never wanted to drink again, because of course he did. But if Sammy ever stopped hiding from him in the Warehouse aisles, Jack wanted to be the best possible version of himself that there could be for him.

Jack doesn’t think of his life split in two by his arrival at the Warehouse – but if he was inclined to think that way, Sammy would be the before and after. 

Jack had told him once, a month into when they’d started dating (because as Lily put it, they U-hauled worse than any lesbians she’d ever known) – _Hey, you know, you’re my endless wonder. _

_I can’t even blame your sappiness on alcohol, _Sammy had smiled and kissed Jack’s head. _You’re mine, too. But what I’m mainly wondering right now? Where my fucking cat is. Sorry, I know you were being romantic, but I literally cannot find her. I bet Ben stole her again. He’s getting more and more daring in his missions to take her from me. _

Jack just laughed, and kissed him again to distract him from cat-related worries.

* * *

Lily lives a fifteen-minute walk from the bar, and she walks with such speed and purpose that Jack finds himself almost winded by the time they finally arrive at her apartment and she slams the door behind him.

“Talk,” Lily says, voice dangerously low. She still has a hand on her weapon.

Jack glances around the apartment – spacious, wide, in a nice part of town. Leather furniture, sliding glass doors that lead out to a balcony, but looks mostly unlived in. Everything is too pristine. Lily’s a slob who can’t vacuum to save her life, how is this her apartment?

The only part of the apartment that Jack sees that makes sense is the kitchen. It has the same sleek metallic surfaces, but they’re covered in stains and take-out boxes. The garbage can is overflowing. There’s a stench that Jack recognizes as stale pizza –

And booze.

There are a lot of empty beer cans and wine bottles in that overflowing garbage can.

“Lily,” Jack says quietly, a horrendous dread settling in the pit of his stomach, “You’re an alcoholic, aren’t you?”

“What can I say? It makes me feel closer to you, kid,” Lily sounds like she’s trying to intimidate with her usual snarl, but it falls flat into something miserable and genuine. “Tell me how the hell you’re alive. I’m not buying that you’re from an alternative universe–”

“Alternate timeline.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Captain Kirk, just explain to me how you can be alive when I buried you more than a decade ago. I don’t know how or why, but I do believe it has to be you, either that or I’m on some kind of hallucinogenic –”

Lily’s voice wobbles just slightly, and she blinks a furious tear from the corner of her eye that makes Jack’s entire body hurt. 

“There’s a place,” Jack bites his lip, knowing Lily can’t believe without seeing, and it’s the only reason she thinks it’s him. She won’t believe in a concept as abstract as the Warehouse when he can’t show it to her, “that stores dangerous, paranormal artifacts. I accidentally touched one of these artifacts, and it has the power to take you back and fix your worst mistake. Except I didn’t mean to touch it, so it didn’t quite work. Instead, it made my worst mistake even more awful.”

Lily’s hand on her weapon relaxes, but her eyes are still suspicious. “Not that I believe you, but – you mean the car crash.”

“I didn’t die in that car crash,” Jack says, throat constricting. “I woke up in the hospital with a broken arm, and you cussing me out. You brought me back to DC with you, and made me get sober. I’ve slipped up a few times in the past years, but I’ve never been drunk again. And neither have you.”

“That sounds much too good to be true,” Lily stares him down almost regrettably instead of with intense anger. “You wouldn’t just quit like that, wouldn’t lower yourself to let me help you – you’re too proud.”

“I did,” Jack tells her, because this is what he feared. That Lily would only remember the bad. “Lily, you missed out on the good parts of our relationship in this world. Because I didn’t get an _after _here, and that’s where our best times are.”

“Look, Jack,” Lily says, and their eyes both jolt to each other when she uses his name for the first time. Her mouth tightens as if she’s angry at it for betraying her. “That all sounds grand. But I lived through these past ten years without you. And I don’t believe in paranormal artifacts that can change the past, or places that store them.”

“Warehouse 13,” Jack says, and Lily’s expression doesn’t show any recognition. “It’s called Warehouse 13. We both work there, as field agents who collect the artifacts. We’re partners.”

“You’re really sounding insane now. I’m leaning more toward you faking your own death –”

“Lily, you have to listen to me. It’s real, and I can show you. I just came from there, but I have to go back, because I need to touch the artifact again to reset the world to how it should be. It’s in the Badlands of South Dakota –”

“There is no universe in which I live in _South Dakota._”

“You love it, Lily,” Jack says, and Lily’s laugh is awful as it reverberates off of her walls. “No, really, you do. You’re happy. I’m happy. We have a family there. Way better than the one our parents could ever give us. We all have dinner, every night, at the B&B where we live. Emily – she makes pumpkin pie better than any grandma in all of history. We have a cat, her name’s Lucille Ball – well, she’s Sammy’s cat, but we’re all trying to steal her, mainly Ben, it’s sort of a long story – but it’s our _home_, Lily. We live down the hall from each other, and will for the rest of our lives, if only I can get back and set it right. Please. Please just trust me.”

Lily stares up at him. There are half a dozen feet of space between the two of them, and as they’ve argued, Lily hasn’t tried to step closer. Jack feels as though he doesn’t deserve to step closer yet.

Now, though, Lily takes a step toward him before pulling back. Her face doesn’t give her away, but Jack knows she’s blinking back tears. Because he knows his sister, no matter the timeline.

“I know you don’t believe in this kind of thing,” Jack says, trying not to sound as desperate as he feels, “but remember how when I was a kid, I’d get funny feelings? I’d be able to predict what was going to happen next, or I’d know when someone was going to get hurt.”

“Sixth sense,” Lily mutters, half under her breath, an old joke from elementary school after they’d both seen the movie, even though Jack had never talked to a ghost. “Yeah, I remember. You were always just lucky, though.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Jack says. “I knew, Lily. And I turned it off with alcohol for years – but I _know things, _and the Warehouse noticed that. And then it noticed you, and how brilliant and brave and resourceful you are. And how much I needed you to come with me. We went to South Dakota together, and that doesn’t stop you from having a billion lesbian trysts a week while the rest of us wonder how you even have the time.”

Lily’s smile flashes, just for half a second. Bright, teasing. Jack’s favorite. Jack waits for an answer, hoping fervently –

And then there’s a crash from behind Lily and she jumps toward him, throwing an arm out in front of Jack’s chest as she draws her weapon.

The balcony that Jack had noticed earlier – oh, _fuck, _the door’s broken in and the wiry man from the Warehouse is standing in shattered glass. He’s got a bloody eyebrow, but glares at them both with fervor.

Pete. Right. _Fuck. _

“Freeze!” Pete’s voice is too squeaky to be intimidating, but the gun he’s holding isn’t. And it’s not a stun gun, it’s the real fucking thing. Apparently just plain killing the dead guy works just fine when Grisham’s sitting in the desk that belongs to Sammy.

“Who the hell is he?” Lily half-whispers to Jack, but she’s loud enough for Pete to brandish the weapon toward her instead. Jack instinctively grabs Lily’s shoulder and pushes her backwards. She struggles to remain in front of him, but Jack keeps his arm steady.

“Someone obnoxious,” Jack starts to explain, but Pete cuts him off.

“I’m your worst nightmare!” Pete shouts, and God, how old is he? How’s he the best the world has to offer for the Warehouse? “You’ve messed with the laws of the universe, Lily Wright! Bringing back the dead is _not _fucking approved by the bosses, alright? Listen, we all want to use the power of the artifacts for ourselves, that’s a given. But bringing back the dead is a new level of fucked-up, and you need to pay for that.”

“Jesus, what –”

“He thinks you used an artifact to bring me back to life,” Jack explains, still eying Pete’s weapon. “Listen, Pete, whatever your name is –”

“Pete Meyers, and don’t you fucking forget it!”

Jack blinks. “Right. Pete. Look, you seem like a decent guy. How about you let me explain –”

“I’ve heard your explanation, and it’s bullshit, Wright! How can you –”

Lily ducks through Jack’s arm too quickly for Jack to stop her, and Jack is suddenly struck with recognition of a maneuver that he knows by heart. He’s the distraction.

He dives to the right while Lily goes forward.

Pete’s gun follows Jack, and goes off with a resounding bang, but Jack’s already dived behind the kitchen’s island. The bullet must have hit the front, because it definitely doesn’t come anywhere near where Jack’s rolled toward.

He doesn’t see Lily get the gun out of Pete’s hands, only hears the noises of scuffling, cursing, Pete shouting in pain – and then nothing other than Lily’s labored breaths and a whimper that’s clearly Pete.

Jack pokes his head up to see Lily pointing both guns down at Pete, who’s sprawled out on her couch with a blooming black eye.

“I guess we might be partners after all,” Lily says without turning to look at Jack, snarling as she glares at Pete. “Go into my room and get the handcuffs out of my dresser drawer.”

“Oh my fucking God, do _not _tell me they’re pink and fluffy.”

“Black and sleek.”

“Jesus, that’s worse.”

Jack tries to touch the handcuffs as little as possible as he cuffs Pete to Lily’s desk, which is the heaviest thing in the apartment. Pete glares at them the whole time, shooting his mouth off about how Grisham’s going to come looking for him soon and then they’ll _really _regret the day they were born, and the day Jack came back to life.

“Does he always talk this much?” Lily asks before she gags Pete with a sock. He still tries to talk at them through it, eyes lit up with fury, but it doesn’t do much good.

“Don’t know,” Jack shrugs. “Never met him in my timeline. Apparently he’s the guy who got my job since I wasn’t around. I’m sure the new you will find us soon. Her name’s Maggie.”

“So he works for this Warehouse place,” Lily eyes Pete suspiciously and he glares up at her. “And they’re after you because they don’t believe you’re from another timeline? That you broke some universe laws instead of having them break you?”

“Yeah,” Jack smiles, a little relieved that she’s at least piecing a little of it together. “Exactly.”

Lily looks between Pete and Jack, and eventually just groans, long and loud. “Alright. I guess my life has officially become a low-budget sci-fi movie. What the hell? Let’s go to South Dakota.”

Jack can’t help but beam, and without thinking, reaches across the two feet of space between them to hug her.

He expects her to spring apart from him immediately and make a snarky comment about Jack being too touchy-feely. What he doesn’t expect is for her to lean in, and bury her head in Jack’s shoulder.

Oh, right. Lily hasn’t had a brother in ten years.

“We do have one stop to make first,” Jack says into Lily’s hair. She doesn’t seem to mind when he reaches up to stroke it back, even though his Lily would never let him in a million years. “Brooklyn.”

Lily laughs into Jack’s chest, muted but the most real that Jack’s heard from her this whole time. “You must be my brother. Only he would expect me to drive in New York traffic.”


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This contains possibly my fav scene in the fic? Listen if you haven't seen the X Files and don't know about the Lone Gunmen...you don't know what you're missing!! Love getting more niche within the niche. Hope you guys enjoy :)

Jack had once been under the influence of an artifact that fucked with his memory. He’d spent three hours in a hotel room, not knowing he was waiting for his sister to come back with the cure to an ailment that he didn’t know he had.

He had no idea what was happening, because Jack thought he was twenty years old, a sophomore in college, living in California and on lukewarm terms with his sister. Nothing was familiar here.

Lily left him with Ben so he wouldn’t see a sister aged up more than ten years and freak out. Which Jack is sure he would’ve.

Ben was calm and reassuring and sat with Jack on the floor of the hotel room. Jack didn’t know anything about the Warehouse or who Ben was, only that he made Jack feel like everything was going to be okay.

“Jesus, I need a fucking drink,” Jack remembered telling Ben, later, and was mortified by his past self’s…everything. “I’ll give you money if you’ll run to the liquor store. My head is pounding, man.”

“Um, I don’t think that’s gonna be good,” Ben said, blinking down. Wide green eyes. Baby face. Ben had been twenty-four at the time, but still looked like a college student. Jack remembered thinking that Ben was probably his age, because no one would let him see his own face and realize that he was thirty-four. “Probably would make your head pound more.”

“Probably,” Jack gave him, though he hadn’t cared. “Hey, do you know where Maureen is? I told her I’d be over, but apparently I _can’t _be because I’m stuck in some shitty roadside inn with a babysitter. Can’t you tell me what the hell’s going on?”

“It’ll all be okay soon,” Ben said instead of answering. “Um, who’s Maureen?”

Jack stared, confused, because this kid seemed to know a lot about him but didn’t know the most important thing about him. Obviously. She was most important. “My fiancée? She’s got red hair, freckles?”

Ben had been _terrified. _Twenty-year-old Jack hadn’t realized it at the time, but when he’d gotten his memories back, he knew Ben’s fearful blink and quivering lip.

“Jack,” Ben had touched Jack’s arm, too gentle. “I – what? I mean – aren’t you gay?”

Jack had flinched, and Ben’s hand flew away like Jack had burned him.

Jack hadn’t talked to Ben again until his memories were restored, and he was flooded with a familiar but painful guilt.

Ben hadn’t avoided him like Sammy or Lily would’ve in a similar situation. Instead, when they got back to the B&B, he followed Jack to his room and hugged him tightly, and told him everything was okay.

With Ben, it was always okay.

“Ben,” Jack said into Ben’s hair as he swayed back with the impact. Ben’s small but stronger than he looks. “I thought you’d be angry with me.”

“You didn’t know what you were saying,” Ben said, muffled into Jack’s chest. He pulled away to stare up at Jack. “You were really engaged?”

“It was over, like, probably six months after that,” Jack says hastily. “She wasn’t a beard or anything, I just – I repressed everything, back then. I didn’t think about it. I got engaged to her straight out of high school because I thought that if I was married, I’d never have to consider anything else. I kept putting off the wedding, and then – well, I figured out why.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me? Us?” Ben quickly clarified. “I mean, not that you have to. Just that – I mean, you know everything about me.”

“That’s because you love to talk,” Jack ruffled Ben’s hair and he blushed and scuffed his shoe against the floor. “It’s not…it’s not the engagement that I want to avoid talking about. It’s who I was back then – repressed, moody, and…..very reliant on alcohol.”

Ben blinked up at him like it barely mattered, and Jack knew it didn’t to him. It never would.

“I wish you hadn’t met that guy. I didn’t like being that guy, and Lily hated me when I was,” Jack had said quietly, and Ben leaned in to hug him again without a second’s hesitation. “I think you probably would have, too. Can you – can you please not tell Emily or Sammy? I don’t want them to think differently of me.”

“I won’t, but you gotta know that there’s nothing in the _world_ could make me hate you,” Ben said, and squeezed tighter. “But you should tell them, because they wouldn’t hate you either. Sammy especially. Because if you guys date –”

Jack groaned and tried to push Ben away. Back then, he’d been losing hope of Sammy ever not ducking for cover whenever Jack asked to talk to him alone, even if Jack just wanted to ask him about something strictly work-related.

“If you date him, he deserves to know,” Ben’s grip around Jack’s waist intensifies. “Promise me you’ll tell him, Jack.”

Jack kept his promise.

* * *

“You sure this is the address?”

Jack leans past Lily to squint up at the building across the street. It’s a little nicer than Jack expected a twenty-something in New York to rent, but not by much. It’s an older white and brown square, clearly made sometime before electricity was a thing, but Jack can tell by the way the windows are spaced that the square footage is more than most Brooklyn apartments.

“According to his mom,” Jack says and Lily raises a judgmental eyebrow at him.

She’d asked questions about Ben on the way up here, and Jack had given as detailed answers as he could to try to show Lily that the world he came from was real and bright and flourishing. He isn’t sure how much Lily buys, though she’d certainly laughed at the story about the time she and Ben decided they were going to clean the roof of the B&B to impress Emily and she had to catch Ben’s ankle to keep him from falling on his face.

“It’s almost eleven,” Lily nods to the clock on her car’s dashboard. “You wanna stake it out, wait for him to leave in the morning?”

“No, that’ll just give Grisham and goons more time to find where we are,” Jack eyes the building. The security system on this place can’t be great. “Besides, I think we have the ingenuity and skill to get in that building without tripping any alarms.”

“And you don’t think this guy, who doesn’t actually know you, might be pissed off about his building being broken into in the name of your alternate universe questing?”

“It’s Ben,” Jack says by way of explanation. “Listen, Ben might not be privy to the Warehouse systems in this universe, but I _know _Ben. And once I explain, he’ll believe me.”

“If he doesn’t call the cops first.”

“You’re legitimate CIA, Lily, I think you outrank them.”

“Not without a warrant, I don’t.”

Her tone moves from actual argument into resigned acceptance though, which is always Jack’s end goal when they’re arguing. Lily puts the car in park with a sigh, and she and Jack walk the two blocks to reach the front door to the building.

There’s a distinct lack of technology other than the intercom system, and Jack considers just calling up to Ben’s apartment, but he knows he needs them to be face to face for Ben to hear him out. He can’t risk a brisk dismissal over an intercom, not when time is of the essence. Jack knows there’s not a timer on the journal, but if the agents catch up with them before Jack can get back to the Warehouse on his own terms this time….

“Second floor,” Lily says after Jack breaks the lock and she swings the door open, a hand on her weapon probably automatically. Jack can’t think of what would be a threat here, but maybe she’s just playing up the CIA angle in case any neighbors are up late and watching.

Jack follows Lily into the semi-lit hallway. The lights flicker, clearly older fixtures. Maintenance obviously isn’t a huge concern in this building. There’s even a rat that scurries by on the stairs. Jesus, Ben can’t like living here.

Jack double-checks the number with the information Betty gave him – Ben’s apartment is the third on the left. Jack’s sure he has roommates, and hopes to God that they believe in the paranormal just as much as Ben does and can’t talk him out of coming with them.

Jack knocks, hesitant, but there’s no answer.

“It’s eleven on a Thursday,” Lily says quietly to Jack from behind him. “He might be out with his friends at a club or something. Seriously, let’s wait until morning.”

“Then why wouldn’t a roommate answer?” Jack asks, and Lily starts to say something about them all being out together, but Jack shushes her.

Ben might be different in this universe, but there’s no way he’s out clubbing.

Not to mention that Jack’s head is buzzing with the knowledge that _there are four people inside of that apartment right now, and one of them is Ben._

“I’ve got a vibe,” Jack says, and nods at the door. “I’m gonna break the lock. You go in first, I’ll follow. Say you’re CIA, and you have a warrant to search the place.”

Lily stares at him for half a second, and then rolls her eyes up to the ceiling. “Well, I’ve already left a man tied up and gagged in my apartment, so my career has already taken a sharp downward turn. God, I hope you’re right about this other universe.”

Jack hopes that he is too, but Lily follows his lead regardless. She must have some sort of faith in him to make this work out for the better.

“CIA, come out with your hands up.” If Lily’s nervous, she doesn’t sound it. Her voice is steely and monotone, as if this situation is all old hat. “I don’t want to hurt you, I just have a few questions.”

Jack follows her, tentative. The apartment, like Jack had seen from the outside, has a large floor plan. However, there’s very little furniture in it. There are two couches shoved in one of the corners, and a red shag rug, but no television. It’s open-plan, and the kitchen is visible to the right of the door, but there doesn’t seem to be anything amiss with it. There’s a doorway out of the kitchen that presumably leads to bedrooms, but no people are visible anywhere. 

“Jack, it looks empty,” Lily says, voice tight, though she doesn’t relax her stance. “Are you absolutely sure –”

The overhead lights flicker once, and then go out entirely. The apartment has no windows, and the room is black within an instant.

It could just be a power outage, but –

_Someone behind you._

Jack hears the door slam shut, and he doesn’t have time to react before someone’s hand is on his shoulder, shoving him further into the room. Large hand, can’t be Ben, then. He hears Lily curse, and is about to tell her not to fire a weapon, but then there’s a harsh white light shining in Jack’s eyes as whoever’s standing behind him ties his hands together with what feels like actual rough rope.

Excellent. That’s three for three on Jack being caught by whoever he’s trying to just have a fucking conversation with,

“Who are you?” A voice he doesn’t recognize booms above him. It sounds almost – synthesized, not quite real.

“I –” Jack casts a look next to him to see Lily bathed in the harsh light as well. The rest of the room is still dark, though Jack can make out more than one shadowy figure standing above where the light is shining. A spotlight, maybe? Magnified by some sort of device?

“What do you know about Roswell, New Mexico?”

Jack blinks a few times, and not just because of the shining light.

“Larry, shut up! That’s not the most important question here!” Another voice, this one not synthesized, cuts in with a hiss. “Ask them about the second gunman on the grassy knoll!”

“Um, Frohike?” Jack cuts in, fear dissipating entirely as he attempts to hold in a laugh. The light seems to shine even brighter. “I think that was the Cigarette Smoking Man.”

“Jack, shut up,” he hears Lily mutter from next to him, but Jack’s suddenly giggling because he can’t help himself.

“Oh my God, Ben, are you seriously moonlighting as one of the Lone Gunmen?” Jack is, quite honestly, too amused and delighted by all of this to be worried about the rope and the light. “You’re Byers, right? You _have _to be Byers.”

“We’re our own thing! Shut up! Everything takes inspiration from The X Files in the end!” The voice that had told Larry to stop talking cuts in again, and Jack feels the light grow too bright as it’s shoved further in his face.

“Ben, do you know these guys?” A voice from behind Jack asks – this must be the guy who grabbed him.

“Um, I don’t think so?” Jack nearly sags over in relief when he hears Ben’s wonderful, worried voice, the same as it’s ever been. “Guys, turn the lights back on.”

“Then they’ll see us!”

“I think they already know who we are,” the guy behind Jack says, and Jack figures now is as good a time as any to talk about why he’s here.

“Listen, we’re not gonna do anything to hurt you,” Jack says, trying to twist around in the direction Ben’s voice came from. “I just need to talk to Ben. I need his help.”

“You – um –my _help_?” Ben asks, obviously a little stunned.

“You must really be desperate,” the annoying voice from in front of them says and Jack turns to glare, even though he can’t see through the light.

“You can keep us tied up if that makes you feel better – but this conversation would be a lot easier if we could see you.”

There’s silence for a few minutes, and some shuffling. And then the awful bright light in Jack’s face goes dark, and the overhead lights flicker back on with a loud thumping noise. 

Jack has to blink a few times to see clearly what’s in front of him.

There are two guys who look to be in their late twenties, one pretty short with dark-cropped hair and a scowl, and the other taller and overly freckled. The freckled guy is holding a microphone connected to a box on a cart – the synthesized voice.

He and Lily are standing facing them, and Lily’s hands are tied behind her back, too. Her gun is in the hands of a guy standing behind the two of them – extremely tall, probably even taller than Jack which is saying something, with blond hair underneath a baseball cap, and a genuinely worried expression, unlike the other two men. He looks a little younger than they do.

And then next to the apartment door is Ben Arnold, who looks almost exactly the same as he did in the Warehouse aisles this morning. Dark, coiled curls on top of his head, a baby face that could beg you to do absolutely anything and you’d melt, short enough to duck under Jack’s arm and stay there forever.

He’s staring at Jack with fearful suspicion though, and not his usual cheerful joy.

“My mom said someone called her,” Ben starts, and his eyes go to his three friends. “A friend of mine from school named Jack. I couldn’t think of who that could be. But nobody messes with my mom, man, so you better explain what you’re doing here.”

“I wasn’t messing,” Jack promises. “I just came from Rapid City. Well, by way of DC, but still.”

“Are you guys really CIA?” The freckled guy, who must be Larry, asks.

“Yeah,” Lily glares him down and he seems to shrink on impact. “I really am, squirt.”

“I’m, uh, sort of,” Jack says, figuring that would take too long to explain. “You guys are obviously into conspiracy theories, right? I mean, I was sort of joking about the Lone Gunmen but also….not.”

“We’re a team of researchers dedicated to exposing the secrets our government keeps from us,” the asshole guy next to Larry says tightly. “If that makes us Lone Gunmen –”

“It super does,” Jack interrupts because he doesn’t want to listen to this guy talk anymore. “Listen, I need you guys to trust me. I’m Jack Wright, and this is my sister, Lily.”

“I don’t really care if you trust me,” Lily inserts, giving each man a derisive look in turn. “Just listen to Jack.”

“She’s hot,” the asshole guy says under his breath to Larry, and Ben glares at him from across the room.

“Shut up, Dan,” Ben walks back toward where Jack and Lily are tied up, giving them both not quite suspicious looks, more curious than anything. Though there’s definitely wariness to his tight expression that Jack rarely sees in his Ben.

“So you’re Ben, and this is Dan and Larry,” Lily nods to the guys in front of them. “Who’s the giant here?”

“My name’s Troy,” the guy behind them says, and though his voice is genial, his eyes remain troubled. “What do you folks want with Ben?”

“If you guys are in deep in the conspiracy game,” Jack starts, knowing that there has to be some sort of theorizing out there about the Warehouse, “Have you ever heard of Warehouse 13?”

Jack expects some recognition, but not for Dan to snort and roll his eyes. “Dude, obviously. Ben’s from that place, you think he didn’t figure it out?”

“Dan!” Ben turns and glares before his eyes return to Jack, less wary this time. “I’ve never like, been inside or anything. I tried to hack in years ago, but the servers are locked up tight. But I know that it’s a governmental storage facility, and it’s somehow tied to a lot of different stories about supernatural objects in the world. Are you – did you come from there?”

“Yes,” Jack says, and he hears Larry mutter _sweet! _under his breath. “But, um, not quite the Warehouse of this universe.”

“Oh my God, the multiverse,” he hears Troy mutter from behind him, and Ben’s eyes suddenly light up.

“I’ve been trying to prove the existence of other universes, are you saying –”

“Not quite,” Jack says quickly, and Ben’s face falls before he adds, “Maybe universe was the wrong word to use. I’m from a different _timeline_. One of you, quick look me up. Jack Wright, San Jose. I died in a car crash about ten years ago, in this world.”

Larry fishes an iPhone out of one of his pockets, and the other three all stare at him for the minute it takes him to Google Jack’s name.

“Yeah,” Larry stares at his phone and then glances between it and Jack. “That’s totally you, just ten years younger.”

He shows his cohorts, who all suddenly appear much more intensified, like they’ve just bought in all the way all at once. It’s a little staggering, the intensity of their gazes on him like he’s a lab specimen. Even Ben is gaping.

“That’s all it takes for you guys?” Lily sighs from next to him, and rolls her shoulders back. “Geez.”

“So in this other universe, you’re involved with the Warehouse,” Troy says, staring down at Jack with a mixture of fear and awe as Jack nods.

“I’m an agent there,” Jack says, and then hesitates before adding, “and so is Ben.”

“No _way, _dude_.”_

Dan’s the one who’s disbelieving, though Larry and Troy’s eyes widen as well. Ben’s jaw just drops as he stares at Jack with a complete wonder in his face. 

“I know you might not believe that,” Jack says, and then quickly corrects, “Well actually, you’re probably the most likely people on earth to buy it. Ben, I need you to help me set the timeline right so that I didn’t die in that car crash.”

Ben just stares, slack-jawed. Okay, so maybe Ben will be too shocked to help.

“How do we know that you know Ben, though?” Troy chimes in while Ben still resembles a fish. “Give us something so we know you actually know him and you’re not just trying to trick us.”

Jack hesitates, but Ben nods at Troy’s words, his eyes clouding over the slightest bit.

“Your dad left when you were four,” Jack says, quiet, not knowing if these guys are Ben’s friends who would know all of Ben’s emotional baggage, or just some very weird coworkers who he’d rather not know. “You have two letters from him. Well, you did. You burned one when you were eighteen because he didn’t come to your high school graduation even though your mom promised he said he’d be there.”

“I told you that?” Ben asks, his eyes widening. Bright and green. Now he looks just like Jack’s Ben.

“You told me a lot of things,” Jack can’t hide his smile. “You’re my best friend, Ben. And I know you don’t know me right now, but I really don’t want to have died, and you’re the only person I know who can help me break back into the Warehouse.”

“We are in a budget sci-fi thriller with a truly horrible script,” Lily says under her breath, even as Ben nearly vibrates with energy as he stares at Jack.

“Um,” Ben looks behind Jack to Troy, just for a second. He must see something reassuring there, because he quickly looks back up at Jack, floored and awestruck. “Yeah. Yeah, I can help you. Oh my _God_.”

“Maybe the first step can be untying these ropes,” Lily inserts acerbically, but without argument Troy begins to untie her with practiced ease before moving on to Jack.

Lily rubs her wrists while she scowls at the men around her, and moves to grab her gun from Troy’s grip. None of the guys make a move to stop her.

“I never did manage to hack in,” Ben’s eyes remain right on Jack. “I don’t know how much I can do.”

“Well, in my world, you _did _hack in, so I know you have what it takes,” Jack tells him. Ben grins, mega-watt, and Jack realizes belatedly that he must’ve somehow been the reason the servers were less secure. He has no idea how he did that, but he’s never been so grateful for whatever lapse of judgment brought Ben into his life. 

Jack leans over to hug Ben without thinking about it, and then freezes midway through because he’s a stranger to Ben –

But then Ben meets him in the middle and hugs him back with the usual staggering strength of a Ben Arnold embrace.

Jack wraps his arms around Ben’s head, pulls him close to his chest, and wishes he could stay in this moment longer.

“I’ve got a question,” Troy says when Jack releases Ben. Jack discreetly tries to wipe away the tears in his eyes without anyone, particularly Lily, noticing. “If you worked for the Warehouse in this other universe, why can’t you just explain to them the problem with the timelines?”

“Because the Warehouse team in this universe isn’t friendly, and has no idea who I am,” Jack explains. “They just know I’m supposed to be dead, so they think I’ve been brought back to life instead, and so they’re trying to….uh, reverse that.”

Ben’s eyebrows shoot up into his hair, and Troy and Larry both blink overly concernedly at Jack’s tone. Dan’s still glaring, though, so Jack knows he was correct in assuming he’s the asshole of the group.

“Hardly anyone there is the same as the people I know, so it’s hard to convince them. And I don’t have personal details about Steven Grisham’s life,” Jack explains. “I mean, Sammy’s there, but he’s…..he’s not quite the same. And Emily’s – gone. So I had to come find Lily and Ben.”

“Who are Sammy and Emily?” Ben blinks up at him, and Jack honest-to-God thinks that question might’ve broken his heart even more than Lily’s empty liquor bottles.

“Emily’s your beautiful, amazing girlfriend,” Jack explains and Ben gapes at him. “And Sammy is your older brother that you forcibly adopted and made take care of you forever. We’re all a family, where I come from.”

“Oh,” Ben says, his smile radiant even though it’s small. “I – okay.”

“So if Ben’s going to South Dakota with you guys to hack in, what can we do to help?” Larry asks when Ben doesn’t continue his thought. “We want to help set the timeline right, too. Maybe we could tag along, strength in numbers?”

“No,” Lily says before Jack has the chance to. He hopes she doesn’t say something disparaging or rude, though the chances of that are small. “You guys go to my apartment in DC. We had to apprehend an agent trying to kill Jack, and he’s tied up on my floor. Make sure that he can’t escape.”

“You got it,” Larry says, beaming up at her. Troy nods, even though there’s still a wary look in his eye. Dan scowls, but nods. “C’mon, guys, this is so great! We finally have a Mulder and Scully.”

“I am not Scully,” Lily glares him down. “Do not ever call me Scully again.”

“I can be Mulder,” Jack says to Larry, actually quite pleased at the comparison. Larry rewards him with a bright beam.

“One other question,” Troy says, his voice much more concerned, but there’s gentleness to his tone. Jack can tell right away that Troy’s the person in the room who cares most about what happens to Ben. “What happens to everything here when time resets? Do we all just…disappear?”

“I – I don’t know,” Jack says truthfully, feeling a bit sick as he considers the repercussions of the question. He doesn’t just want to delete this universe from existence, these people have lives – but this universe is also only different from Jack’s by the measure of his own mistakes. “But if you give me your last names, where you’re from – when I get back to my world, I’ll make sure you’re alright. And if you’re not, I’ll make sure we take care of you.”

Troy’s not done, though. “Is Ben happy there, in your universe? It sounds like your job is dangerous. I want to make sure my little buddy isn’t walking into a trap, or that he’s only going back to a world where he’s unhappy. He’s had a rough time lately, and you could be taking advantage –”

“Troy,” Jack takes a tentative step away from Ben and Lily and toward the other man. He takes a deep breath and places a hand on Troy’s shoulder. “At the Warehouse, we each have a different set of rules for when we go out in the field. Lily’s rules mostly involve not using grenades. But my number one rule, all the time, is that I make sure Ben is okay, first and foremost. He’s my brother, and I will _never _let anything happen to him.”

Troy’s mouth sets into a tentative smile, and he reaches over to clap Jack’s shoulder. Wow, Jack’s really not used to being around someone multiple inches taller than him. Ben must feel absolutely dwarfed by this guy.

There’s a determined glint in Troy’s eye now as he looks from Jack to Ben. “Then we’ll take care of the man at Ms. Wright’s apartment, no problem. I just need to know you’re watching out for Benny, in this world and the other one. If he doesn’t know me, I want to make sure he’s safe.”

“I am an adult,” Ben pipes in, and Jack can hear the scowl in his voice.

Lily’s usual snide town when it comes to making fun of Ben is in full-force. Maybe it’s because it’s the first time, in this universe. “Did someone forget to keep watering you when you hit puberty?”

It takes a few minutes to get Ben to calm down from the remark which naturally bothered him more than anything about him having another life. He eventually follows them to Lily’s car without protest. He actually looks excited, which was what Jack had been hoping for. Ben had been so pleased, in his world, at the discovery that the paranormal truly existed. He had to be just as gleeful about it now, maybe even more so because he’d waited longer for it.

“You’ll really protect me?” Ben asks when Lily pulls away. Jack had gotten into the backseat with Ben, because he knows how much Ben pouts when he’s relegated alone to the back. “From whatever’s waiting for us?”

“Of course,” Jack grins and puts an arm around Ben, who melts into him. It’s nice that Ben still wants his friends to be touching him all the time, even when he doesn’t really know them.

“Jesus,” Lily rolls her eyes from the driver’s seat. “You sure he’s your brother, Jack? Feeling more boyfriend-y by the minute.”

Ben blinks up at Jack, and unfortunately there’s some actual curiosity there. Ben will usually throw his arms around Jack – or even more often, Sammy – when someone insinuates that they’re dating, and make kissy faces until either Jack starts making them back or Sammy hides under the table.

“Little brother,” Jack promises, both to Lily and Ben. “Um, you will probably meet my boyfriend soon, though. That’s Sammy.”

“You didn’t mention that, Jack,” Lily’s voice drops lower and tighter, though she doesn’t sound angry. Judgmental and worried, but not angry. “Couldn’t you recruit him to help save your soul?”

“Not really,” Jack says, his stomach turning at the thought. “He’s not himself, in this world. He’s….well, um. He’s sort of, um. An immortal being who tied himself to the Warehouse. Which he didn’t do in our universe because he wanted to spend his life with us.”

The car is quiet. Lily stares at him through the mirror, obviously a little creeped out if the line of her mouth is anything to go by. Ben’s only biting his lip in concern.

“He looks sort of scary right now,” Jack turns to Ben and squeezes his shoulder again. “But I promise, he loves you so much. You guys spend every day together. You re-teach him how to play Mario Kart every other week. You’re trying to steal his cat, but not really because she’s your cat, too. You braid his hair when we have movie nights. So there’s no reason to be afraid of him.”

Hopefully, Jack adds silently in his head, praying that he can get Sammy to hear him out if only for a second.

Sammy’s not just different because he’s the Caretaker, though. Sammy never had the chance to recover from any of his trauma in this world; he only had more trauma heaped on top of it. He didn’t have Jack or Ben to help ease him into a better life.

“Braiding hair?” Lily snorts, clearly worried though she’s trying to hide it. “I think I hate these guys, Jack.”

“She loves you,” Jack promises Ben. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”


	4. Four

Being in love with Sammy makes Jack better.

Of course, Sammy himself has a lot to do with it. Sammy’s been through so much bullshit in his life, and Jack spent years wanting to be the guy who made that worthwhile. Now, Sammy clearly thinks he is, and that’s a lot of pressure on Jack to be the best he can be.

But he’d put that pressure on himself long before he and Sammy had ever even kissed. Because it had been instantaneous for Jack when he met Sammy – like a vibe.

Sammy was in pain, and Jack could help.

It wasn’t love at first sight – it’s more like Jack knew, from the first day, that he’d love Sammy in the future. And for Jack, the future came quickly.

Jack wants to be what Sammy needs, and sometimes, he thinks he’s very good at it.

Other times, he doesn’t.

Jack didn’t know why he insisted on the winery for their first date. (Yes he did – his last boyfriend thought Jack not drinking was boring.) He didn’t know why he tasted the sugary sweet fruit wines. (Yes he did – he wanted to be normal and ordinary and pretend the _before _didn’t happen.) He didn’t know why he ordered a glass of the sickliest kind. (Yes he did – he could pretend it was grape juice.)

They hadn’t even ordered their food yet when Jack cut off what Sammy had been saying about Lucille Ball’s bedtime routine. “Sammy, can you please finish this for me?”

Jack shoved the glass of wine at him, and Sammy blinked, confused, but he did exactly as Jack asked. He drained it in two swigs, and then set the empty glass back at Jack’s place setting.

It’s a nice winery. Restaurant attached. Jack should be able to be here. It had been over nine years – he should be able to be on a date here without feeling like he’s itching out of his skin.

“You’re shaking,” Sammy’s confusion turned to alarm.

“I’m sorry,” Jack grimaced. “I thought I could handle this, I – I thought –”

“I’m gonna go pay,” Sammy said, and for a horrible second, Jack heard a monotone fear creep into Sammy’s voice like he regretted this, like he was going to go back to the Regents to tell them he’ll be Caretaker now, Jack’s not enough to stay –

Sammy leaned across the table and took Jack’s hand in his own. He laced their fingers together and squeezed, even though they’re in public, even though they’re in small town South Dakota.

“I’m sorry,” Jack repeated a few more times as he followed Sammy out of the restaurant and into the parking lot. It’s not entirely dark yet, but the sun is setting and casting the world in golden. It was too pretty. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have – I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal. I thought I’d be fine.”

“Jack,” Sammy studied his face intently as they walk back to Jack’s car. Neither of them got inside, and Sammy only leaned against the passenger side door when they arrived. “Don’t apologize, just please tell me what’s the matter.”

“I’m sorry, I just – I have this thing in my head, where I feel like I need to be normal, and this is normal,” Jack gestured back at the winery as his face heated up in embarrassment. It sounded so stupid when he said it out loud. “But I – I don’t think I can drink, ever. Even if it’s just a glass with dinner. I’m sorry, I should’ve – I should’ve realized that.”

Sammy stood up a little straighter, and Jack noticed for the eighth time that night how nice he looked. He was wearing a green button-down and his hair was pulled back in a half-braid because Ben insisted. _It’s your first date! If you don’t let me help you get ready, I might cry._

“The last guy I dated – he made me feel shitty when I didn’t drink with him,” Jack hated even bringing that up, because in the leagues of shitty exes, Sammy outstrips him by a million miles. “I’m sorry. I should’ve –”

“C’mon,” Sammy didn’t let Jack finish, and Jack closed his eyes so that he didn’t have to see Sammy’s expression, see disappointment, or fear, or panic. All the reasons Sammy wouldn’t want to be with him. “Jack, c’mon. I just drained a glass of wine so I’m not driving.”

“Home?” Jack asked as he crossed to the driver’s seat and opened the door. Sammy, from the passenger’s side, gave him a look like Jack had never said anything weirder in his life.

“Town,” Sammy gestured toward the road. “That super nice German restaurant near Betty’s house that Ben loves. They serve steak for dinner, and Herschel raves about it. We can get hot chocolate. Or apple cider. You like hot drinks.”

“It’s July,” Jack was a little blindsided by Sammy’s insistent tone, like nothing Jack said had even registered. “And you can drink, if you want, I don’t –”

“Not tonight,” Sammy told him, and poked the wheel because Jack hadn’t started the car. “Maybe not ever. Believe it or not, I’ve used alcohol as a coping mechanism more than once in my life, so I understand the feeling. C’mon, let’s get out here.”

Jack had pulled the car out of the parking lot, and started down the winding highway toward Ben’s hometown. Sammy’s quiet for all of a minute until –

“I don’t care about your drinking problem,” Sammy said, firm and certain in a way he only gets when he knows he’s in the right. “And don’t look at me like that, of course I already knew about it. I vetted you, remember? But after you got a DUI, there was never anything like that again. So it doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t change anything between us.”

“Are you sure?” Jack stared over at him, but Sammy’s expression hadn’t changed from a sad little smile in Jack’s direction. “I – I know it takes you awhile to trust people, and this is something I didn’t tell you – and that DUI, that was – I think about that every day, because I never want anything like that to happen again – I’ll never be that reckless, especially not now that we’re together – I’ll – you –”

Sammy reached across the console to lace their fingers together, more permanently this time. He didn’t let go, and he didn’t talk again for a moment. He only bent down to kiss the back of Jack’s hand, and made all the air go out of Jack’s lungs in the process.

It had only been a week since they’d kissed for the first time. Everything was so new. They both blushed, and Jack felt a bit like crying.

“I didn’t know it was so serious,” Sammy said quietly, “that it was something that affected you so much. But it’s fine that it is. So you haven’t always been so perfect – it doesn’t matter, because that made you who you are now. And I know you’d never do anything like that again. I’m never gonna make you feel shitty for not drinking, alright? We’re gonna have hot apple cider.”

If Jack hadn’t been driving, he would’ve kissed him.

He did, once they parked outside the restaurant, and they even held hands for a second on the way in. Not the whole way, but for more than a minute. They ordered apple cider, like Sammy promised, and had steaks that Herschel discussed with them at length the next six times he came and visited them at the Warehouse.

And Jack felt like he didn’t have to be perfect. He could just try to be good, and Sammy would call him perfect anyway.

_Because you’re perfect for me, _Sammy told him, because he’s the sap here, not Jack.

Or they both are. It’s very possible that they both are.

* * *

“Holy shit. Is that – is that a _pyramid_?”

Jack remembers the first time Sammy had lead Jack and Lily into the Warehouse, how he’d watched their awestruck looks with a pleased little grin. Jack noticed him, in the face of the wonder that the Warehouse is, he noticed how pleased Sammy was that they liked it.

The Warehouse had robbed Lily of the worst traits of her skepticism with a single breath, and given Ben’s belief credence when Jack saw him laugh in sheer delight when he saw a storm cloud brewing over the aisles, his first time. _It has its own weather system! Emily, look! _

There’s a pang in Jack’s chest as he sees Lily and Ben witness the Warehouse for the first time all over again. The awareness that Jack’s telling the truth just as important as the paranormal world waving its hands in front of their faces, crystal clear for the first time in this universe.

“Yeah,” Jack moves to stand between them. The three of them had come in the Warehouse’s alternate entrance, which Jack just barely knew about because of an intruder last year. It had taken them an hour to scale the Badlands and find the alternate door in the first place, and another to scour through the tunnel system and find the way to the Warehouse.

They wouldn’t have made it without Jack’s vibes pushing them forward, guiding him on which way to turn.

“Wow,” Lily says softly, the first words out of her mouth. Jack notices her hands shaking, and he puts an arm on her shoulder to steady her. “I guess – I guess I believe you, kid. Jesus. I’d move to South Dakota for this place.”

“I’d come back,” Ben whispers, a faint echo in the long, endless aisles. Their tunnel had come out on the platform in the Warehouse’s east wing, and there’s some rickety stairs that lead down to the aisles. Jack hopes that Grisham didn’t reorganize. “God, do I really work here?”

For a second, Jack thinks Ben’s upset. His eyes turn red as he blinks back a few tears, and he’s not looking right at Jack. He tentatively steps forward when he hears Ben begin sniffling, and fully puts his arms around him when he starts crying in earnest.

“Hey, Benny, what’s the matter?” Jack pulls him closer and Ben laughs under his breath, even though it’s watery.

“Do I let you call me that?”

“Not every day. Just when you’re upset. Emily’s the only one with full Benny privileges.”

“It’s just,” Ben hesitates. “I’ve been lying to my mom about being happy in New York and having a cool job – I’m really just lonely, and Dan sort of bosses me around. He pays me and I live with him, if I argued he’d kick me out. Troy’s the only good thing about my life there, and I just – in your world, I really get to be here? Every day?”

God, Jack misses his Ben.

“See that office up there?” Jack points across the Warehouse to the main entrance, where Sammy’s desk – Grisham’s stupid fucking desk – is just barely visible across the distance. “You and Sammy share. It used to just be Sammy’s, but you basically took it over when we hired you. Sammy called you his hyperactive demon child for three weeks, but then Lily and I got home and found him asleep with his arm around you.”

That gets Ben to smile, tiny but so, so pleased. “Let’s get back there, then. Where do we need to go?”

“We were down across from the Ovoid Quarantine when it hit me,” Jack points. It’s about even with them, but toward the west wall. “The artifact should still be here in this universe, too. I doubt it can move within this world when it’s in use – if I used it here, it has to stay here.”

Lily nods at Jack like she already has an action plan in mind. Lily loves taking action, and Jack loves that about her. She starts down the staircase, and Jack pushes Ben forward so that he can stay between them and Jack can keep his promise to Troy that Ben will stay safe.

“Okay,” Lily says when they reach the bottom of the staircase and they’re greeted with rows upon rows of aisles, each different in size, shape, and color. “Jack, this is like – supernatural zone. So if we go straight, will we hit that Ovoid place, or are the metaphysical rules of this place different?”

Jack stares at her in shock for half a second, and Lily scowls. “I’ve watched Doctor Who. I can ask smart sci-fi questions.”

“As long as there aren’t any traps set –”

A nasally voice that makes Jack’s skin crawl interrupts.

“Oh, I don’t think we need traps.”

It isn’t like Jack hadn’t expected this, but it’s still draining to turn and see Steven Grisham casually leaning against an aisle a hundred paces away. He’s got dark circles under his eyes like he hasn’t slept, probably too busy preparing for Jack’s inevitable return to the Warehouse. It’s been about forty-eight hours, he’s had time to prepare.

In his left hand, he has a tight grip on an ornate golden instrument, light gleaming off of the bright sheen, with black lettered engravings along the side so intricate and detailed that it was hard to take in.

Orpheus’s Lyre.

“Guys,” Jack says slowly, guiding Ben behind him with his arm, “this is Steven Grisham. In my world, he’s a Regent who tries to tell us what to do and fails. Obviously he wormed his way into agent-hood in this world.”

“Worlds, worlds,” Grisham chuckles, and brings the lyre up to his chest like he’s crossing himself with it. “Give it up, Wright. You had a few days back on earth, had some time to say goodbye to your sister, and whoever this boy is – but the game’s over now. The jig is up, and it’s time to go back where you belong.”

“I don’t know who you think you are,” Lily says, her voice dangerously low as she steps in front of Jack. This time, he lets her. “But you don’t get to talk about my brother like that. Ever.”

“We’ll deal with you in due time, miss,” Grisham tells her and Lily wrinkles her nose at the word. “Bleaching your memories should do the trick. And what’s your name, young man? Are you responsible for my missing agent, or did the Wright siblings take him out before they recruited you? Fair warning – they’re liars who will tell you anything you want to hear.”

Jack’s heart seizes up with a bit of fear that Ben will buy in, but Ben’s expression doesn’t change. His eyes on Grisham remain distrustful, the set of his jaw a distinct Ben Arnold Is Angry Face.

“I don’t know who _you _are,” Ben says, patented fury in his quivering lip, “but I know you sounds like a snake, so like, I’m gonna trust the people who say they trust me.”

Ben glances up at Jack with a half-smile and Jack manages to smile back before Grisham flips his stun gun on them –

And suddenly Lily’s seized up with electricity visibly coursing through her body, and Jack ducks under her arm to grab her actual gun. Not that he wants to kill Grisham – not that he doesn’t _not_ want to kill Grisham – but he’ll make the sacrifices that he has to, and Grisham’s one that won’t hurt too badly.

“Going to kill me, dead man?” Grisham laughs as Lily falls to the ground. Jack points the gun at him as he points the stunner back, and neither of them moves. Grisham’s arm is taut, and doesn’t shake. “You and your tiny companion who looks barely out of school are going to stop the most powerful location in the world from restoring order to the universe? We don’t fail here.”

“No,” Jack tells him, and his hand shakes. He can’t shoot. “We don’t.”

Grisham doesn’t take the shot at Jack, but that doesn’t make Jack’s predicament any better. Because instead, he holds his opposite hand out with Orpheus’s Lyre.

Jack tries to move backward but he finds he very suddenly cannot move a single inch. Not his fingers, not his toes, not the slightest turn of his head. Orpheus’s Lyre moves from Grisham’s hand as if it has its own will, floating in the foot of space between them, inching closer to Jack.

Grisham seems as though he can’t move either, his mouth frozen in a half-smile, vindictive and pleased, weapon still drawn but arm unmoving. A haunting melody fills the Warehouse aisle, the lyre playing its own series of notes, echoing off the walls.

The lyre creeps ever closer toward Jack.

_Ohshitohfuckishegonnadie – _

Jack hears an ear-shattering shout from behind him that isn’t any words. It sounds like – like a _battle cry. _

Jack can’t turn and see, but the shout undeniably came from Ben, and he catches in his peripheral vision a look of complete rage on Ben’s small, freckled face as Ben charges past Jack and directly into Grisham’s chest.

Grisham topples, unable to stop the spell of the lyre whose notes are still echoing through the Warehouse.

But Grisham falling doesn’t stop the lyre, or the music that it plays. It floats closer to Jack, who’s still frozen in place.

Ben wrestles the stun gun from Grisham’s lax hands before turning back to Jack, eyes wide as if he was asking _what am I supposed to do now?_

Jack wouldn’t have an answer even if he could speak. The lyre is coming for him, undeniably, and Jack would rather risk his life 

The lyre hits Jack’s chest and everything goes dark. No more noise. Just silence.

Is this – is this what it feels like to –

A sudden burst of certainty.

_I’m not dead._

The world lights up once more, the melody stops short. The lyre clatters to the ground in front of Jack’s feet, and he can move again.

“What the _hell –_” Grisham snarls from the floor and puts an elbow on the ground –

“Ben, now!”

Ben doesn’t even look scared as he points the stun gun down and pulls the trigger at Grisham, though the pushback from the electricity surging from the stun gun makes him stumble backwards. Grisham falls back to the floor, head lolling and eyelids fluttering until they close.

“What was that thing?” Ben stares at the lyre on the ground between them and Jack bites his lip.

It didn’t work. Because Jack knew, with complete certainty, that he wasn’t dead. And the lyre had listened.

“Something they thought could hurt me, but can’t,” Jack explains, and quickly turns around to check on Lily to stop himself overanalyzing it.

She’s sitting now, propped up on both elbows – the stun gun usually doesn’t have an extremely long effect on its victims – but blinking dazedly, clearly a little out of sorts.

“Did the kid just shoot someone?” Lily’s voice is a slightly slurred, but she’s mostly steady as Jack pulls her to his feet. She keeps leaning on him, but the more she blinks, the firmer her feet get. “Didn’t think he had it in him.”

“Hey,” Ben says, a little affronted, and opens his mouth to argue but Jack shushes them both before a classic Lily Ben Anger Contest can start.

“C’mon, Grisham will be up soon,” Jack pulls Lily toward the aisle closest to them, and Ben follows suit without being told, “And I want to be out of his line of vision when he does.”

They only manage to walk for two lengths of aisles as Jack explains “It’s a tiny book, barely bigger than my fist. It says Frost on the front because it belonged to Robert Frost. It’s called the Road Not Taken, but Sammy calls it The Worst Mistake You Never Made –”

It’s like Jack summons him with the invocation of his name, because nearly the moment the name _Sammy _slips out of his mouth, Sammy himself flashes into view directly in the aisle in front of the three, blocking their path and causing both Lily and Ben to stumble.

“I do call it the Worst Mistake You Never Made. But how do _you _know that?”

Sammy’s appearance is exactly the same how he looked in the office two days ago. Same gaunt features, dark circles, skin and bones. No smile, no frown, no nothing. Staring at Jack like he’s an interesting bug, not even a human being, let alone –

Looking at this Sammy is like nails on a chalkboard. Jack just wants to rush over and smooth his hair back and say _let me make you dinner, oh my God, when was the last time you ate?_

Jack can’t do that here, though. This Sammy keeps staring him down without any affection in his face.

“Orpheus’s Lyre didn’t work on you,” Sammy continues, and Jack feels Lily’s hand curl around his own as if trying to protect him. He hears Ben suck in a long breath from his other side. “So you must not be dead.”

“I’m not,” Jack breathes, glad at least this is an agreed upon fact. “I’m not dead, Sammy. I created an alternate timeline with the Road Not Taken.”

Sammy nods, but for some reason, that doesn’t reassure Jack at all. “An alternate timeline. Alright. So what timeline are you trying to return us to? Because I’ve had my run-ins with timeline mishaps before, and none of them are pretty. They’re messy and painful and people end up dead.”

“The only difference in the timelines is that I died in that accident, ten years ago,” Jack explains, hoping fervently for even a modicum of understanding. “And that’s changed – other things. Along the way, for people I know. People like you.”

That gets Sammy’s face to twitch. His expression gets a little tighter, which Jack usually doesn’t enjoy, but right now it’s something tangible to hold onto, a way to know his words have some effect, no matter how small, on Sammy.

“You hate green olives but you love black olives,” Jack starts, unable to think of any specific story to show that he knows Sammy, other than the obvious and painful ones that Sammy shared with him only under great duress. He knows his boyfriend though, and therefore he’d shut down in an instant if Jack even began to broach sensitive topics. “Your favorite song is Melt With You. You wonder all the time what happened to your old Saturn. Your cat –”

Jack realizes, and cuts himself off, a new loss sudden and painful, because Lucille Ball isn’t roaming these aisles. “Sorry, wrong timeline on that one. You don’t have a cat here.”

Sammy’s eyes don’t quite meet Jack’s. He can’t tell if there’s anything behind them – usually bright and brown and soft, but now too dark to read – but at least he seems to be affected by what Jack’s saying.

“A cat,” Sammy sounds a bit confused. “And I suppose your sister and Ben Arnold are somehow connected to the Warehouse in your version of reality as well.”

“Agents here,” Jack says, heart pounding, “like me. We’re – we’re all a family, Sammy. Lily’s everyone’s obnoxious older sister – Ben’s everyone’s obnoxious little brother. And you and me –”

“Oh, Jesus, right,” Lily mutters under her breath with a vague sort of panic. “This is your boyfriend, I nearly forgot. You’ve got a weird type, Jack.”

“I – what?”

Sammy frowns. His signature confused, alarmed, panicked frown. God, Jack could kiss that frown all day. Usually Sammy stops frowning after about two seconds of Jack trying to make it disappear, but Jack would keep going for as long as it took.

“He looks a little less like a vampire bat in reality,” Jack says quietly under his breath, but he doesn’t miss the way Sammy’s eyebrows narrow. He quickly adds, “A really cute vampire bat.”

Sammy’s expression doesn’t change from alarm, but there’s a new added bonus filtering in – suspicion.

This is why Jack was not going to mention the boyfriend thing. Because this Sammy still associates the word boyfriend with assholes who betray your trust and not his best friend who loves him.

As long as they’re here though, Jack needs to go all in.

“Sammy, I love you. And you love me, and Ben, and Lily. You don’t know it right now, but you do. Please, I’m just trying to back to you – to all of us, the way we’re supposed to be. No offense, but all of your lives are pretty shitty without me. I just want to set this right.”

“What you’re saying,” Sammy sounds particularly restrained, and not in a calm and collected way. More like in a way that gives away how hard he’s trying to seem restrained, “It sounds like an ideal kind of world, so you can see why I’m having a little trouble trusting that it’s reality. What seems too good to be true probably is, and I can’t give you access to an artifact with the power to change time unless I’m absolutely certain.”

God, Jack thought he was done with the years of Sammy keeping him at an arm’s length because he seemed too good. It feels as if someone’s punching his chest when Sammy stares him down, eyes just far too dead for Jack to take.

Jack tries to think of something, _anything_, to say to get Sammy to listen.

Ben pipes up before he can.

“Look – Sammy, right?” Ben says, and Sammy’s eyes flicker from Jack over to Ben. “I don’t know you at all. I barely know Jack. But I know that yesterday I hated my boring, awful, stilted life – and today I’m standing in a place so – so full of –”

“Endless wonder,” Jack fills in, and realizes half a second later that he and Sammy spoke at the same time.

“And Jack says that in his world – you and me, we’re best friends who spend every day together,” Ben says, and a smile starts twitching at his lips. “And even though I don’t know you, I’d really like to live in a world where that happens. Because you seem like you could use a friend. That Grisham guy doesn’t seem like he’s great company.”

Sammy’s face flashes, just for a moment, with what’s almost a smile.

“I don’t know you either,” Lily cuts in, with a much fiercer look on her face, “but I’m not living in a world without my brother if I know he’s alive. So no matter how I feel about you in Jack’s world, I _will _kill you in this one if it brings me closer to living there.”

Sammy nearly takes half a step backward, and Jack can’t help but smile because Lily is just so predictable.

“Sammy, I’m not lying when I say we’re a family,” Jack tells him, and Sammy’s face flickers with something Jack hopes beyond hope is akin to understanding. “You, me, Ben, Lily – and Emily.”

That definitely gets Sammy’s attention, his eyes zeroing in on Jack with a kind of righteous anger. Not quite thunderous like he’d been in the office, but close enough, and certainly furious.

“Emily Potter is dead because I failed to save her,” Sammy says, his voice nearly shaking. Oh, God, Sammy’s been so alone for so long. Jack just wants to reach for him.

“But I did,” Jack tells him because he can’t reach, he can only pray that he’ll listen. “I saved her, Sammy. She’s _fine, _in our world. She’s at the B&B – when I touched that artifact, she was making pumpkin pie for our dessert tonight. Ben wouldn’t shut up about it all day. Ben’s her boyfriend – they’re so happy. The three of you make dinner together most nights, you and Emily because you’re great cooks, and Ben because he hates being left out. She’s alive, and she spends every day with you two.”

Sammy’s expression goes from almost a smile as Jack talks, a look of complete longing and hope that even Sammy’s Caretaker-ness can’t hide – but then it changes into one of fear. God, he can’t – please, this has to –

“That’s a low blow,” Sammy says, voice barely above a whisper. He raises a single hand up.

The world goes dark. Jack doesn’t even have time to reach for Lily and Ben before he falls forward.

* * *

Sammy nearly always puts clothes back on after they have sex.

It doesn’t bother Jack – it had surprised him a little when Sammy had started collecting clothing items ten minutes after they’d slept together for the first time, especially since Jack didn’t plan on moving for at least an hour – and most of the time, he’s a little charmed by it. The refusal to sleep naked is just so quintessentially Sammy.

Besides, he usually puts on Jack’s boxers and t-shirts, and Sammy wearing his clothes is probably Jack’s favorite thing in the world. They’re just a little too big. Jack likes it when Sammy wears his sweatshirts especially, because Sammy despises sports of any kind but will gladly wear Jack’s high school wrestling sweatshirts and college rugby kit anywhere.

Jack does start to judge how good the sex is by how long it takes Sammy to put his clothes back on afterwards, because when Sammy’s super blissed out, it can take him awhile.

One night that hadn’t seemed particularly better than the rest, Sammy didn’t make any moves to get off of Jack’s chest, and he was even talking casually about plans for tomorrow with complete coherency.

Jack didn’t want to bring it up and ruin the moment, but he also didn’t want Sammy to feel like this had to be mark he ever had to cross. Jack loves that Sammy sleeps in his clothes; he doesn’t need it to be any other way.

“Do you want a t-shirt?” Jack mumbled when it had been over an hour and Sammy hadn’t moved.

“I’m okay,” Sammy whispered into Jack’s neck, and Jack realized that he didn’t even get tense in a response to the question. This was what Sammy was like when he was relaxed. It barely ever happened for more than a few seconds at a time, Jack hadn’t recognized it at first.

Even though Jack didn’t need this from Sammy, it still made Jack’s heart swell with happiness. He leaned down to kiss Sammy’s forehead. “Okay.”

They were still talking quietly when the door to Jack’s room – which had honestly become more like _their_ room in recent months –creaked open slightly.

“Hi, Lucille,” Sammy grinned. Suddenly there’s an extra weight on the edge of the bed where Lucille Ball jumped up. She meowed at them in a very succinct, whining sort of way. “Jack, she says Ben’s chasing her.”

“Ben’s always chasing her,” Jack reached an arm across Sammy to scratch Lucille Ball behind the ears. She purred, and Jack didn’t have to read her mind to know she was pleased.

“Did you know that Lucille Ball calls you Daddy?” Sammy said out of nowhere, seemingly shameless, and Jack had to hold a hand to his mouth to keep from laughing.

“She does? What does she call you?”

“Also Daddy. She has for ages now, since before we were together. It was very embarrassing, then. Now I think it’s sweet. She calls Ben her baby kitty, which is a little too fitting –”

“Is Lucille Ball in here?”

The door was just open enough for Ben to take that as permission to stride into the room, barely glancing at Sammy and Jack and what he could possibly be interrupting. “There she is, the rugrat.”

He scooped Lucille Ball up from the edge of the bed as Sammy groaned loudly and slid the comforter up so that it enveloped his entire body, head included, from Ben’s view. Jack was flat on his back so Ben automatically couldn’t see anything, but he glared at Ben in solidarity.

Ben sprung back up with an armful of orange kitty. Lucille Ball looked down at Sammy and Jack with wide eyes and Sammy made another pained noise from where he peaked out from under the blankets.

“Oh my God, Ben, _get out of here.”_

“I was just looking for the cat,” Ben curled his arms protectively around Lucille, who meowed again. “You guys are the ones who went to bed at eight, and therefore deserve whatever interruptions you get, in cat or human form.”

“Benny, are you up here?” Another voice from the doorway, and Emily appeared with her long dark hair braided on top of her head. She giggled when she noticed Sammy hiding under the covers. “C’mon, give the boys some privacy.”

“Privacy doesn’t exist at the B&B,” Ben said and Sammy made a noise that clearly meant _don’t I fucking know it. _

“Oh, are we all having a rendezvous in the honeymoon suite? I didn’t realize!”

“Lily, get out!” Jack called, now actually feeling a bit of Sammy’s mortification. Even though he couldn’t see Lily, he knew she was coming closer and he didn’t deserve whatever ribbing she’d have for them. “All of you, leave! Take the cat with you if you have to, just go! And shut the door behind you!”

They all listened, Ben with reluctance and an eye roll and Emily still giggling.

“The one time,” Sammy said as he threw the comforter off with a disgusted harrumph, “the _one time _I’m not wearing any clothes. Pass me your UCLA t-shirt. And possibly a _parka, _which I’m never taking off again, _ever, _for the rest of my life_._”

“I look forward to our inevitably uncomfortable beach vacations,” Jack said solemnly, but he cracked a smile a second later, and handed Sammy his shirt. 

* * *

Jack wakes up to the sound of sniffling.

“Ben?” Jack croaks, because he’d recognize that whimper anywhere. He feels a pressure on his left side disappear, and then suddenly a hand is shaking his shoulder.

With great difficulty, Jack forces his eyes to open.

He’s leaning uncomfortably against a large metallic shelving unit, and his hands are tied behind his back with a rope that he can immediately tell is more than just rope – it’s an artifact that presumably won’t ever let him escape from its coils. Jack thinks he recognizes the cord as the lasso that gets tighter the more you struggle against it.

Ben’s next to him, with red-ringed eyes but he smiles when he sees Jack blinking at him. However, Ben’s gaze keeps flickering between Jack and –

Jack and the Bronzer.

The Bronzer where Steven Grisham struggles against Lily in restraints as he tries to shove her inside of the chamber.

Lily doesn’t seem fully conscious even as she struggles, and even from the hundred yards or so between them Jack can tell her eyes are going in and out of focus. That’s not stopping her from cursing at Grisham repeatedly as he makes comments under his breath that sound suspiciously like _stupid bitch._

Maybe Jack will kill Grisham in actual reality, too.

“What is that thing?” Ben whispers, fearful and lip quivering. “What’s he doing to her?”

“It’s called the Bronzer,” Jack says back, quiet so Grisham doesn’t notice he’s conscious yet. “You see those stony figures lined up over there? They’re Warehouse criminals throughout history. Some are over a thousand years old, frozen in place for eternity.”

“And he’s gonna do that to us?” Ben’s voice squeaks and Jack nudges Ben with his shoulder.

“No,” Jack promises, keeping his voice firm even though his mind can’t help but go to bleak places. “And even if he does, I’ll reverse it. But I _have _to get to the Road Not Taken.”

“I know,” Ben says back, and then gets a determined glint in his eye that Jack knows and loves. “Um, I sort of have this plan. And I don’t think you’ll like it – but like you said, you’re going to fix everything.”

“What is it?” Jack asks, hoping Ben’s not planning on war-crying it again and charging down Grisham this time. With Grisham not magically frozen in place, confrontation will end badly for Ben.

“You keep pretending to be unconscious,” Ben whispers. “Grisham hasn’t noticed you yet. And when Lily’s in that machine thing, I’m gonna run. Loudly. He’ll have to chase me down. And that’ll give you time to go find the journal.”

“It’s about as good a plan as we can get with so little time,” Jack tells him, casting a look around the room. He doesn’t see Sammy, or Maggie for that matter, and hopefully he’ll have the chance to outrun them if it comes down to it. “I think Troy might be pissed at me for breaking my promise, though.”

“If turning me to bronze is the worst thing Grisham can do, I think I’ll be fine,” Ben’s grin is strained, but present. “I believe you when you say that the world is better than this. Nothing ever felt right. This, though – _this_ feels right. And I’d gladly turn to bronze if it means making the world right again.”

“I’d hug you if not for the ropes,” Jack whispers to him, and even the comment makes Ben flush with happiness and pride. “Alright, do it. I hope to God it works, but if it doesn’t –”

“It will,” Ben says, and nudges Jack again, who lets his head loll down to his chest so Ben can do his thing. Ben stands, his own hands only handcuffed behind his back – maybe he can find a way to get them undone. “Hey! Whoever the fuck you are! Let Lily go!”

Jack tries his hardest to keep his face lax, even though he wants to smile at Ben in reassurance. 

He feels Ben spring up next to him, and shout something taunting in Grisham’s direction about hair plugs, and then the pattering of footsteps heading in the opposite direction.

Grisham curses, and yells _“Hey, you little shit!”_ and heavier footfalls follow.

Jack waits a few seconds before he cracks an eyelid open.

He’s alone in the Bronze sector, Grisham and Ben no longer in sight.

Lily’s still here, but not – not quite. She’s in the Bronzer, her complexion turning from a healthy, glowing golden of human skin to a golden too bright to even look at. Her face, arms, entire body – it’s all slowing rusting over, worse the longer Jack stares.

Jack stands, tears forming in his eyes without them meaning to as he sees his sister’s expression freeze in place – wide, concerned eyes looking directly at him as if to say _hurry_.

“I’ll fix this,” Jack promises, just in case the process isn’t complete yet and she can still hear him – and then he bolts.

The Bronze Sector isn’t close the Ovoid Quarantine, but they’re both nowhere near the front office, which Jack supposes is a point in his favor. Hoping that Ben keeps Grisham distracted for at least the next ten minutes, Jack really only has to worry about Maggie or Sammy finding him.

Sammy is obviously the bigger worry, since he’s the one with superpowers, but in either case Jack’s hands are still tied behind his back, so it’s not like he’ll have any advantage regardless.

He rushes through three different aisles, double-checking that there’s nothing that can help out with the rope situation, but there’s nothing simple and time is of the essence.

God, Jack hopes the Road Not Taken is still in the same aisle and they didn’t have time to move it –

“Stop running.”

A hand grabs Jack’s elbow out of nowhere and Jack’s terrified enough that he crashes into the last shelving unit in the aisle, but the same hand keeps Jack from falling entirely against the shelf.

Sammy’s in front of him again, and his hand remains on Jack’s elbow until Jack looks down at it, at which point Sammy snatches it away like he’s been burned.

Jack squares his shoulders, preparing for – he doesn’t know. The last thing in the world he wants to do is fight Sammy, and with his hands tied he’s at a very distinct disadvantage. But he also has determination on his side, because Jack will do _anything_ to set this right.

Sammy doesn’t lift a hand to use whatever power he has again, though. He only reaches behind Jack and begins to undo the ropes until Jack’s hands are entirely freed.

Sammy doesn’t look Jack in the eye, even after the rope is discarded.

“Sorry,” Sammy says quietly as Jack stares at him with no idea what his next move is supposed to be. “Grisham was waking up, and he’d never let me get away with helping you. I may be in charge of the Warehouse, but I can’t control him. No matter how much I’d like to.”

Sammy cracks a small smile, like he’s making a joke. Jack tentatively smiles back, even though his heart is still in his chest.

“Does this mean you believe me?” Jack asks, heart pounding with hope, and Sammy casts a long look around the Warehouse as if looking out for any other intruders.

“I believe you used the Road Not Taken to get here,” Sammy tells him and Jack feels his shoulders relax almost involuntarily. “I’m willing to set the timeline right because that’s what the Warehouse dictates. The laws of the universe have to remain in balance, and there is something distinctly unbalanced about this situation.”

It’s not affection. It’s not trust, or love, and that hurts Jack in ways he can’t articulate. But the look on Sammy’s face isn’t blank or dead anymore, either – it’s determined.

Jack will take determined.

“I hid the Road Not Taken after you first appeared here – both from you, and from Grisham,” Sammy’s lip curls just slightly in disgust when he says the name. “Come with me.”

Jack doesn’t have a choice, but he’s also struck with the realization that he’d follow any version of Sammy regardless of universe, and the two of them take off down one of the aisles, in the opposite direction of the Bronze Sector.

“The Biggest Mistake You Never Made,” Sammy says suddenly after about thirty seconds of silence. “I presume it’s the drunken driving accident.”

“Yeah,” Jack answers, stomach turning at that being the primary characteristic of Jack in this Sammy’s mind. Drunk, reckless, dead because of it. “I’m sober, in my timeline. Have been ever since.”

“You died here as….wasted potential,” Sammy says after a moment, and then gestures down another aisle, and the two of them take a sharp turn. “That makes sense. I can see how the Warehouse would want you if you changed your life after that.”

“I did,” Jack says – maybe promises. “_It _did.”

“I still can’t ever –” Sammy sighs, and walks faster. Even though Jack’s a few inches taller, he still struggles to match his pace. “It’s been a very long time since I could see myself getting involved with _anyone. _Unless I met you before any important events happened in my life, I can’t imagine why I would want to be with someone like you, because – you would have to be practically perfect.”

The words sting, even though Sammy’s tone isn’t callous or cruel. It’s more curious than anything. It hurts, but it’s better than it has been. Sammy seems to genuinely want to know.

Jack can tell him, _has _to tell him that, even though this line of questioning makes his entire body hurt. “You kept me at arm’s length for a long time – because you’d still gone through a lot, when I met. Cecil. And Micah.”

The names make Sammy flinch, and Jack resists the urge to reach out and take his hand, even though he desperately wants to, for his own reassurance as much as Sammy’s comfort.

“And for some reason that’s beyond me, you do think I’m perfect,” Jack says, feeling almost stupid saying it. “I don’t know why. I’m obviously very much not. I’ve fucked up a lot in my life, and right now we’re living in a world shaped entirely by my fuck-ups. But for some reason, that doesn’t matter to you. So I try to be the person you think of me as – because that’s all I ever want to be. What you deserve.”

Sammy’s still staring directly ahead at the aisle before them, and not at Jack. When he speaks, however, it sounds almost like Jack’s Sammy.

“Not sure how I deserve anything like that.”

Jack’s about to respond with something heartfelt that somehow shows Sammy just how much Jack loves him, and will for the rest of his life, but then Sammy puts a hand out to stop Jack in his path.

“Maggie,” Sammy mutters, and then he grabs Jack’s bicep, and despite how much thinner he is in this world, he has a surprising strength as he pulls Jack down a different aisle, and then into a confined, out of sight space between two shelving units.

Jack doesn’t realize just how small the space is until his and Sammy’s chests are practically pressed together. Jack’s never been so glad of his three inches on Sammy that put his eyes at Sammy’s forehead level, because he couldn’t deal with having to look him in the eye right now.

That doesn’t stop Jack from feeling Sammy’s breath on his neck, or his shoulder knocking against Jack’s briefly, and then pulling away again. There are only a few feet of space here, and Jack can’t back up any further.

There should be shared body heat, but Sammy still radiates an awful kind of cold. Jack wonders if Sammy feels it, if he can tell, if he has to carry that cold around with him no matter where he goes.

Jack hears cautious footsteps that must belong to Maggie nearby, and he holds his breath. Sammy could just disappear, but Jack can’t, so he supposes he’s grateful that Sammy’s sticking with him.

The footsteps fade and Sammy clears his throat, voice coming out in a whisper. “Sorry. I would’ve gotten the artifact for you, but I can’t take artifacts with me when I…”

“It’s fine,” Jack says, and he wants nothing more than to put his forehead on Sammy’s shoulder and just breathe for a moment, but he won’t. He can’t. “We good to keep going?”

“Not much further,” Sammy nods, and Jack steps out from the hiding space first, Sammy following suit.

Jack’s nearly itching out of his skin, and he knows Sammy notices as they continue quietly. Jack shouldn’t talk, just in case Maggie is nearby, but he can’t help but ask –

“I don’t know how this works, but –” Jack hesitates. “If this really is another universe, and not just a timeline. If I touch the journal and go back, but you’re all still here – don’t let Grisham bronze Ben. Find him and take care of him, okay? I wasn’t lying before. Ben is like your little brother. You guys are more attached than conjoined twins. And he really needs someone to take care of him – and you probably need someone to take care of you, too. Even if you are the Caretaker in this world.”

Jack’s voice twists bitterly as he says _Caretaker, _accurate to his feelings as it is unintentional. Sammy turns to him, and though he doesn’t stop moving, there’s a strange quality to his eyes that Jack hasn’t seen yet here. Something almost like…_hope_.

“I’m not the Caretaker?” Sammy asks, and more of that hope filters through. “In your timeline?”

“You had the option,” Jack swallows, “but you didn’t take it. You wanted to live a life with me. With Ben. Everyone. Herschel’s the Caretaker.”

“Herschel’s….alive?”

If Sammy’s eyes had betrayed hope before, they’re very nearly shining with it now, an understated glean made all the more powerful by how muted it is.

“Yeah,” Jack says, doing his best to smile. “Herschel and Emily are both alive. Both fine.”

“When you go back,” Sammy’s voice nearly shakes, the greatest show of emotion Jack has seen, “tell Emily I love her. And tell Herschel I’m sorry.”

Jack stares at him, a horrible dread creeping through his chest. He doesn’t stop walking, doesn’t stop moving, but he nearly stumbles. “So….you will still be here. After. I – I don’t want to leave you here.”

But Sammy just shakes his head, pursing his lips together. “No, I won’t be. You didn’t hack the multiverse, Jack. You created this timeline when you touched the Road Not Taken, and you’ll erase it when you touch it again. I won’t ever have existed like this. I’ll always have been the person you know, whether that’s the – the person you described to me, or if you’re lying. I won’t know either way.”

“I –” Jack doesn’t know how to feel. Relief, but also a crushing sadness. “Aren’t you scared, then? Shouldn’t you be, like, fighting me to stay alive?”

“Why would I do that?” Sammy asks, though it’s clearly a rhetorical question. His mouth twists in a small smile. “My life here is constant misery. I’m completely alone. If you’re lying about what the world is like, I’m not losing much. And if you’re telling the truth, I’m certain that I’ll be much happier in your world, with….with you.”

“You are,” Jack promises him, because Sammy looks almost pained to say it, his forehead wrinkling in a kind of despair. “You are happy. And I’ll try to keep making you happy for the rest of your life – I promise.”

Sammy smiles at him, fleeting but genuine. He almost looks like Sammy did when Jack met him, just for a second – in pain, but trying so hard not to be.

“We’re here,” Sammy comes to a stop a moment later, in a nondescript aisle that Jack recognizes as housing all of their Farnsworth artifacts. There’s no one nearby – no footsteps, no Grisham, no Maggie. No Ben, no Lily. Just the two of them –

And The Road Not Taken, balancing precariously on the top shelf. Sammy reaches up, and even though he’s an immortal, powerful being, he still has to stand on his toes just for a second before he clasps a hand around the journal and brings it back down.

Jack stares at it, reverent, the name _Frost _engraved on the cover. Sammy holds it gingerly, half-grimacing as he closes his eyes.

“I can feel that it’s connected to someone – and that the connection needs to be broken,” Sammy holds the book in Jack’s direction. “I won’t exist like this for much longer, but if I did, just know that I would’ve saved Ben. I know you look at me and you see something awful and painful but –”

Jack doesn’t take the book from Sammy’s grasp.

Instead, he takes a step closer and cups the side of Sammy’s face, and kisses him.

Sammy doesn’t kiss back, but he doesn’t shove Jack away either. His eyes open slightly in surprise, but Jack continues to kiss him, because in a way, this is the end of the world.

“Jack,” Sammy blinks at him, dazed, as Jack lets go, “what –”

“Because you deserve to be kissed by someone who loves you,” Jack tells him, trying not to cry. He wants to go back to his Sammy so badly, but he wants to take care of this Sammy, too. “I waited for you for a long time, Sammy. And I’d wait for any version of you, in any world. If the Road Not Taken couldn’t be fixed, erased – if this was my reality, I would wait for you all over again.”

“Good thing it’s not, then,” Sammy stares at him, not deadened or blank, not cruel or callous, but with the kind of nervous reticence that Jack recognizes so well from the Sammy he met four years ago. Given time, he could be Jack’s Sammy. He hadn’t been hurt badly enough to be unrecognizable after all. “Take it, Jack.”

He holds out the book. Jack closes his eyes, holds his breath, and reaches forward to touch the spine.

_A sickening crunch – _

_No, blood in upholstery, disappearing – _

_His arm, fuck, it feels like his arm’s broken, he can’t move – _

_The car veering, a tree he hadn’t seen – _

_A white hospital room._

_His sister’s voice. _

“I fucking hate you.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack tells her without opening his eyes. “I won’t. Ever again.”

Everything goes sideways, and grey.


	5. Five

“He’s here! In the Farnsworth aisle!”

Jack is quite certain that his head has never felt worse. It’s pounding in constant, throbbing agony, and he’s pretty sure he can feel something sticky and wet dripping onto his hand that’s probably blood. A weird sense of déjà vu passes through him, because he definitely felt like this when –

_Crunch. _

The memories flood back in without warning, and he gasps out as the pain worsens to the point that its unbearable. The Road Not Taken, the empty booze bottles in Lily’s apartment, Emily’s B&B but no Emily, the harsh white light that Ben and the Lone Gunmen shone at him, the hollowness of Sammy’s face –

“He’s bleeding, tell Emily to grab the first aid kit on her way down!”

Someone’s cupping Jack’s cheek, their fingers running through his hair – a small hand, the nails short. Lily. Jack tries to reach up to grasp at her, but he doesn’t think his limbs are working yet.

“Emily,” Jack tries to say, but he can hear how garbled it is, not sure if Lily will be able to make it out. “Emily, where’s Emily?”

“Is he alright?”

“I think he’s asking for Emily. Emily?”

More hands, one on his knee and one clasped around his own. Sammy and Ben. Jack still can’t open his eyes, and his forehead feels like it’s about to melt off his face the pain and heat is so intense.

“I’m right here, Jack. Right here. Everyone, move aside so I can patch him up –”

The sound of Emily’s voice gives Jack a sudden burst of energy, and he forces himself to sit up in one jolt to collide with her. He still can’t open his eyes, but he wraps his arms around her slight shoulders as best she can. She’s warm, her long hair tickling Jack’s nose, and her hands are soft and gentle as she rubs small circles on his back.

“Jack,” Emily whispers, soft as can be. She smells like pumpkin pie. Jack’s missed her so much. The world had been so empty without her in it. “Jack, what’s wrong? Can I see what the matter with your head is?”

“Sammy said,” Jack’s still a little hazy, but he knows how important this is, how much it means even though that Sammy is gone now, “Sammy said he loves you.”

“Um,” Emily’s tone is confused but delicate, and she reaches up to stroke the back of Jack’s head. He leans into her. “Okay? He is right here, you know.”

“I also didn’t say that,” the sound of Sammy’s voice rings out, also a little befuddled but his usual mild-mannered snarky tone that Jack loves. “At least not recently. I do love you, Emily, but I’m not exactly sure why that’s pressing right now? Jack, does it feel like you have a concussion? That head wound –”

“What happened, Jack?” Lily and her wonderful, urgent pragmatism ring through. “Frost’s journal hit you and you just – flickered out of existence, like a lightbulb. We thought – we thought you were gone, but then we heard a crash and Ben checked the systems –”

Jack’s head is on fire, but he manages to force his eyes open as he lets go of his iron grip on Emily.

His friends surround him, kneeling on the ground around his bloodied body. _His family_, not any alternate versions of them that don’t recognize him. Lily and her bare, no-makeup face blinking at Jack with half concern and half annoyance, Ben’s wide green eyes so worried as he grips Jack’s knee, Emily’s gentle smile, Sammy looking like his boyfriend and not a vampire bat, pale but not gaunt, messy hair piled on top of his head and his fingers laced with Jack’s.

“I just,” Jack clears his throat, feeling dizzy with all the emotion surging through him, “I just lived through the worst forty-eight hours of my life.”

“It was just twenty minutes,” Ben’s mouth parts in surprise. “I found you on the monitor pretty fast, dude.”

“Here, it was twenty minutes,” Jack says, and leans forward to kiss the top of Emily’s head. She makes a surprised noise, but strokes Jack’s hair away from his face while he’s close. He can feel that it’s sticky with blood, but she doesn’t seem to mind when the blood gets on her hands. “But I had to live with the worst mistake I never made.”

“Jack –” Sammy squeezes his hand but Lily cuts him off with a panicked curse.

“Oh, shit,” Lily stares at him with new eyes. “Your forehead. That’s not from falling in the aisles. That’s where your scar is from – from –”

Jack knows he has to explain now, even though it hurts so much to even tell them that a world where he fucked up so badly existed, even for a short time. “The artifact created a timeline where I died in that car crash. I had to – to find the Road Not Taken again to put it right.”

“Oh, God,” Emily says quietly, voice laced with sympathy as she takes Jack’s other hand. “I can’t imagine.”

Jack can’t look at Lily or Sammy, can’t see the expressions on their faces and what they might betray about their thoughts. It would hurt too badly. Ben’s gaze is bad enough, teary and heart-rending.

“What was it like?” Ben asks, hushed, and Jack can tell they’re all waiting on his answer. They all go so still, the question hanging in the air between everyone, sucking the breath out of the room.

“Horrible,” Jack says, because honesty is the best policy, and they probably wouldn’t believe anything else. “No offense, but your lives all _sucked_.”

Lily chuckles even though it’s clearly not funny. Sammy leans down and rests his head on top of Jack’s, and Jack stops fighting the urge to touch, and instead turns his head into Sammy’s chest and just breathes him in, shaky but getting better the longer Sammy’s hands are on him.

“You’re alright, it’s over,” Sammy strokes the back of Jack’s neck, and Jack doesn’t miss the way his voice shakes. He believes him though, because this is his Sammy. _His_ Sammy.

A quiet meow echoes from down the aisle and Jack blinks up to see Lucille Ball trotting toward him, her wide and luminescent eyes actually quite readably scared. She quite honestly gets more human every day.

Jack nearly tears up as she jumps past everyone surrounding him to curl into his lap, licking his fingers with her rough tongue when he pets her. He does start crying in earnest then, because it’s impossible not to.

“I think I missed you the most, Lucille Ball,” Jack says it like a joke but it’s really not. She happily curls up against his stomach, blinking up at him with joy.

“There was no Lucille Ball?” Ben asks, hushed but alarmed, and Sammy puts an arm fully around Jack and pulls Jack’s head against his neck. Jack lets him, happy with the contact. His Sammy is so warm, there’s none of that awful chill here.

“There was no…..no anything,” Jack squeezes his eyes closed, and strokes Lucille Ball to stay grounded. “I – I’m so glad you’re all here. That we’re together again. I love you all so much.”

“Okay, sap,” Lily says after a beat, but Jack can hear the tears behind her voice because if anyone here has thought the repercussions through, it’s her. Lily’s certainly figured out what her life was like, she has that sort of self-awareness. “I’m sure it was depressing, but it couldn’t have been that bad.”

“It was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced,” Jack admits. “Don’t ever touch that thing – put it in the Dark Vault if you have to, just keep it out of reach.”

“Done,” Sammy promises, and kisses the side of Jack’s head. “Honey, can you stand up? We need to patch up your forehead or it’s only gonna get worse.”

Sammy has maybe called Jack honey twice before, both times decidedly not in front of other people, and the pet name makes Jack smile through his tears which don’t show any signs of stopping quite yet. Not when his family is surrounding him and Lucille Ball is curled up happily meowing in his lap.

“Here, I’ll take her,” Ben scoops Lucille Ball up and for once Sammy doesn’t tell him off for cat-stealing. Instead, Sammy takes both of Jack hands and gingerly helps Jack to his feet, his big brown eyes blinking with worry every time Jack so much as stumbles.

“I’m okay,” Jack tells him, wobbling a little as he gains his balance. Lily and Emily both hover next to his shoulders. “Really, I am. Everything is fine, now. I’m home.”

Sammy smiles at him, the nice small smile that Jack only gets when Sammy’s particularly sappy or particularly embarrassed, and Jack realizes he doesn’t have to hold back anymore. He leans into Sammy’s side and melts, and Sammy puts an arm around him to keep him upright.

“Let’s get back to the B&B,” Emily suggests as she loops Jack’s other arm around her shoulder. She’s the second-tallest after Jack, she can probably do the best job of keeping him upright. “Pies are in the oven, that’ll make you feel –”

“Someone say pie? I’d hoped that the awful feeling I just got about the safety of the Warehouse was pie-related, Ms. Potter, and you’ve just made my day. But seriously, what the fuck was that noise? I was halfway across the goddamn country and could hear the racket you nincompoops were making here. What, I’m not around for a day and you all try to knock this place over?”

Herschel flashes into existence in the aisle in front of their path, his lined face creased with general annoyance. He can hear Sammy sigh from next to him, but Jack doesn’t even think of anything but pure relief.

He stumbles forward, out from Sammy and Emily’s grasp, to hug the hell out of Herschel.

Herschel freezes for a moment before he puts a single arm up to pat Jack’s back a grand total of twice.

“What’s your problem, Wright?” Herschel asks gruffly. Jack’s never been able to tell Herschel’s opinion on him, only that Herschel loves Sammy more than most anything and that makes him equally positive and negative about Jack’s existence in general. “Run out of trees to hug so you have to use me instead?”

“Sammy told me to tell you he was so sorry,” Jack says, not knowing how much sense it would make to Herschel but knowing he has to keep his promise to pass on the message. He wants to explain and contextualize, but the thought of that Sammy, of his existence but also him being gone now, has Jack shaking.

“Again! I never said that. Jack, what –”

“Sammy’s always sorry,” Herschel releases Jack with another firm pat on the back. “What did the fuckhead do this time?”

“It’s…it’s a long story,” Jack can’t even begin to articulate the how and the why of everything, even though he can tell everyone around him wants answers. “I just got back from another timeline where everything’s horrifically fucked up and terrible. I do have two ideas for potential new Warehouse recruits if we’re hiring – Katie Lynch and Troy Krieghauser. I need to look them both up and see if they’re alright in this world –”

“How do you spell that?”

“Since when do we recruit?”

“Jack, I really need you to tell me why you keep passing on messages from me.”

“Everyone just give Jack some space, he has a head injury –”

Jack lets their usual argumentative voices flow over him, closing his eyes and feeling a swooping, hay sort of peace that he’d been so worried he’d never have the opportunity to experience again.

He loves his family.

* * *

Jack knows he’s clinging, and he does not care.

After Emily cleans the blood off of his face and makes sure his cut isn’t infected, Sammy and Ben holding one of his hands each with Lily hovering overhead, they all eat pumpkin pie together in the kitchen even though it’s dinnertime and that’s generally not allowed.

Jack doesn’t want anyone to leave, so it’s a good thing no one wants to leave him. They all stay very close and take turns being the one Jack clings onto. Jack would be annoyed at the mothering under any other circumstance but right now he wants everyone he loves within arm’s reach.

Jack insists, to Ben’s absolute delight, that they all drag pillows and blankets into the living room and sleep there tonight and have a movie marathon. Jack doesn’t want to be alone, or even alone with Sammy. He needs _everyone. _

Herschel doesn’t deign to stick around for the movie party, berating them all for their unbearable sappiness before vanishing into thin air, but that’s Herschel’s own particular way of showing he cares.

And Jack’s relieved beyond words that it’s Herschel who has the power to disappear and not Sammy.

Jack’s already usually the last one awake every night, and tonight is certainly no exception. Ben falls asleep on Emily’s shoulder during the first movie, and Emily’s curled up under one of her fuzzy brown blankets and eventually drifted off, too. Lily shoved her feet in Jack’s lap before she started to snore loudly and obnoxiously. Sammy lasted the longest, but now he’s curled up against Jack’s other side, snuffling in his sleep.

Jack hasn’t cried since they left the Warehouse, but now he finally feels like he can again, because his emotions are too complex and fraught to explain to anyone else right now.

He only gets through a couple of sniffles before Sammy jolts with a start.

“Honey,” Sammy reaches up to pat Jack’s cheek, voice hazy and slurred with sleep. “Don’t cry. You’re okay now. You’re okay.”

“Only because you’re here,” Jack says because Sammy hasn’t yet, and that gets Sammy to smile just the tiniest bit as he leans up to peck Jack’s cheek.

“So are you ready to talk?” Sammy asks. “No one else will wake up. Lily and Ben could sleep through several apocalypses if you let them.”

“I don’t want you to freak out.”

“Jack, the not-knowing is way worse.”

Jack sighs, knowing it’s a losing battle when Sammy kisses him again. He’s given them some scattered details about their lives there – no one is together, more tragedy happened other than Jack’s death, everyone’s lives are shit. But he’s skipped the details purposefully.

“You were the Caretaker,” Jack admits, and he can feel Sammy’s body go still next to him. “You didn’t have anyone to talk you out of it, because there was no me, Lily was boozing it up in DC, and Ben never hacked into the place and was out in New York, unfulfilled and lonely. Emily was – was _dead_, and so was Herschel. You were all alone.”

“God,” Sammy whispers, closing his eyes as he leans his head against Jack’s, the misery in his voice evident at even the idea. “I’m so sorry you had to see that. Was I – was I even – was there anything good about me?”

“Sammy, of _course _there was,” Jack’s shocked by even the insinuation. “You were unrecognizable only at first. But you were so much like how you were when we first met – like a spooked animal. You’d just had a million other terrible things happen to you, too, and that made it harder to see.”

The tears come fast and hard now and Jack hears Sammy whisper a quiet reassurance, but he can’t even make out what the words are. Sammy presses down on the bandage on Jack’s forehead and smooths out the creases.

The wound hurts just as badly as it did the first time.

“I just keeping thinking about him –the other you,” Jack explains, hoping Sammy doesn’t take this the wrong way. “I know he’s gone now, but what if there is a multiverse out there? What if there is a world where I’m really gone forever, and you never knew me, and it looks just like that? I just hate myself so much for ever opening up the possibility for that world, because – because I came so close. I fucked up, and that was almost this world. That Sammy might be gone but who knows, he could’ve been lying to make me feel better, that world could still exist –”

“Jack,” Sammy cups Jack’s face with both his hands, his voice low and firm but not in an unreadable sort of way – in an insistent way. “You didn’t. None of that happened. And you don’t need to worry about where that Sammy is, because he’s in here, in me, and he’s so happy, Jack. _I’m _so happy that you’re here. I don’t care how you got here, how close you came to not, because it didn’t happen that way. You’re _here.”_

Sammy’s tearing up now, too. Jack kisses him, next to his eyes first, and then his lips. Wet and messy but so, so real.

“I love you,” Jack whispers, and Sammy slides his hands through Jack’s hair. It feels like home. “Every version of you. Even the vampire bat kinds.”

“I – what?”

Sammy looks over at him fondly through his lashes, and Jack kisses him again because he can.

“Can we maybe go away for a weekend?” Jack suggests when they break apart, a little shyly because it’s not something they’ve done before. “Leave Emily in charge here, go somewhere just the two of us? I sort of want to have sex with you for twenty-four hours straight.”

That makes Sammy giggle, groan, and roll his eyes all at the same time. At least he’s not crying, though. “I think that would probably kill me, and maybe you, too.”

“Worth it,” Jack breathes out a laugh, and Sammy leans up to peck his lips again. “Alright, maybe just put my arms around you for twenty-four hours.”

“We could get a cabin or something,” Sammy suggests, biting his lip in the nervous way he does. “I’m sure the Warehouse could survive for a day or two, and then Ben wouldn’t be at risk for hearing or seeing anything non-age-appropriate.”

“He’s an adult,” Jack points out only because Ben would be annoyed if he didn’t.

“An adult who does not need to have seen what he’s seen!”

“Fair point,” Jack laughs at Sammy’s disgruntled expression. “Okay. Let’s get a cabin.”

Jack realizes what a big deal this is when Sammy kisses his jaw like a promise. It had taken Sammy three years to move out of the Warehouse, about two months after that to move into Jack’s room, and still hasn’t spent a night outside the B&B. They’re taking baby steps, though. Because waiting for Sammy is the easiest thing Jack’s ever done.

Sammy settles back into his side, and Jack can tell he doesn’t need to ask any more questions, that he’s allowing Jack to be done with the story and put it behind him. He doesn’t need any more details, won’t insist Jack share any of the other pain and trauma he went through.

Even though Jack’s sure he’ll expand someday – if only so he can tell everyone that Ben was literally in an alternate universe Lone Gunmen gang – he’s grateful for the silence right now.

It’s comforting, and although Jack knows he’ll always have nightmares about the repercussions of what he experienced in that world, he knows equally as strongly that Sammy and the rest of his family will be here when he wakes up. 


End file.
